⁍ Spanish soldiers have been sent to build a camp for migrant strawberry pickers.

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⁍ U.N. official criticised authorities for allowing seasonal farm workers to live in ‘inhumane’ conditions.

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⁍ Three fires broke out in migrant shanty towns near the southwestern town of Huelva last week, injuring four people.

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⁍ Health officials have warned that the cramped settlements put workers at risk of catching the coronavirus.

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– Spain has sent soldiers to build a camp for migrant strawberry pickers after a UN official called for urgent action to improve “deplorable conditions” in worker settlements before people died. Three fires broke out in migrant shanty towns near the southwestern town of Huelva last week, injuring four people, and health officials have warned that the cramped settlements put workers at risk of catching the coronavirus, which has killed more than 28,400 people in Spain since April, Reuters reports. “This reality of fires and inhumane conditions in the shanty towns cannot be tolerated any longer,” said Olivier De Schutter, the UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and rights. “The situation is deteriorating alarmingly each day, made worse amid the COVID-19 pandemic.” Often dirty and dangerous, and lacking water, sanitation, and electricity, such camps have been used as accommodation for Spain’s seasonal fruit-pickers for years. De Schutter said COVID-19 had worsened the situation. “This reality of fires and inhumane conditions in the shanty towns cannot be tolerated any longer,” he said. “The situation is deteriorating alarmingly each day, made worse amid the COVID-19 pandemic.” Spain is one of the European countries hardest-hit by the pandemic. Since ending a three-month lockdown in June, it has registered 281 new isolated outbreaks, over a quarter of which began in workplace environments. Authorities in Catalonia imposed two localized lockdowns in Segria and Lleida after a spike in coronavirus cases linked to migrant fruit workers.