Creu Roja, the Red Cross, has entered into a year-long agreement to rent 160 beds in two blocks of a hotel complex in Mallorca in order to accommodate Ukrainian refugees.
At present, there are 290 refugees at the Balearic government's so-called Covid hotel, the Meliá Palma Bellver. It is expected that 160 will be transferred on Thursday, while another 58 are due to be moved to two facilities on Wednesday - the Sant Joan de Deu Hospital and La Salle College in Palma.
These moves are designed to offer a longer-term solution to housing refugees, and they follow a Tuesday protest by some sixty people at the Palma Bellver. They were drawing attention to "poor organisation" and "degrading treatment". On Tuesday, they were informed by the Red Cross that they should prepare for the transfers when notices of these transfers were put under doors of rooms at the Palma Bellver.