Guardia Civil evict campers from Rainbow Family gathering in Benaocaz, Cadiz

More than a hundred Guardia Civil officers from different units were deployed on Thursday last week in the municipality of Benaocaz to evictthe group of people from a movement known as the Rainbow Family who have been camped for more than two weeks on a private estate in the heart of the Sierra de Grazalema, in the area known as the Nueve Pilas.

The eviction was ordered by a court in Ubrique after the owner of the land lodged a complaint. The operation involved more than a hundred officers from various units such as GRS, USECIC, USECIA, Citizen Security, Pegaso (drones), Dog Service, Fiscal Patrol and Judicial agents, among others.

The officers had towalk up to the estate for about fifty minutes on foot to reach the camp and were received in a peaceful manner. The campers were told that there is a court order to evict them and that they could leave the area voluntarily or they would have to be forcibly removed.

In addition, they were obliged to collect and remove all the equipment and installations that they had set up in this protected space over the last two weeks.

The camp is located at an altitude of 800 metres in the Cadiz mountains.

By Friday there had been no serious incidents, except for the arrest of two foreign nationals who refused to leave the site.

During the time they were camping in the area, officers carried out permanent controls at the accesses to the land and issued numerous sanctions due to the fact that the members of the community were lighting fires and dumping waste, something totally forbidden due to the high environmental protection of this site. In addition, they were occupying private property without permission.

The members of the Rainbow Family, a group that worships Mother Earth and plans its meetings according to the lunar cycles, arrived at the site on 20 May. The number of people camping there varied but was on average around a hundred, most of them foreigners. By Thursday, however, there were around 200, some of them children.

The group has denied holding orgies and the use of "hard drugs" during their stay. It is thought that they were planning to extend their camp until the end of the lunar cycle next week.