Halloween warning as fresh looting calls emerge across Spain after Barcelona violence

Warnings have been called for Halloween night in Spain as people are starting to see online calls for street gatherings on Saturday October 31, a week after looting hit central Barcelona. Madrid, Algeciras, and San Pedro de Alcántara near Marbella are among the places named, though there’s little sign so far of how many people will actually turn up.

Calls have appeared in at least five places

Online calls for gatherings on Halloween have been identified in Barcelona, Madrid, Bilbao, Algeciras and San Pedro de Alcántara, according to a Newtral investigation of about 70 TikTok accounts. Many use the name Blocus, a French term for student school blockades. 

The accounts are a patchwork rather than one organised campaign. About half were created this year, 10 of them in October, and at least 29 changed their usernames to Blocus-style slogans during the week of the Barcelona unrest. Some also invite people into WhatsApp groups for further instructions. 

The arrangements don’t match from one place to the next, either. In Madrid the calls point to Plaza de España and Puerta del Sol, while in Barcelona they name Plaça de Catalunya and Paseo de Gràcia. An Algeciras poster gives a time and place (6.30pm in Plaza Alta) and asks people to come in costume with loudspeakers, flags and cardboard for banners. For San Pedro, no meeting point or time has been reported, and some accounts cite other dates including October 26, 27 and 29. 

Barcelona’s night of looting set off the alarm 

On Saturday October 24, a student protest called online as ‘Instituts Indignats’ (Indignant Schools) gathered in Plaça de Catalunya, where a housing-rights encampment had been in place for about a month. It hadn’t been formally notified to the authorities. By the early evening bins and motorbikes were on fire, a barricade burned near Carrer de Bergara and looting spread towards La Rambla and Portal de l’Àngel, with many shops shutting early. EWN reported on the night’s incidents, including shoppers inside El Corte Inglés when it closed its doors.

The final tally was more than 20 shops looted and 128 arrests, 72 of them children, according to EFE. About 450 people were identified, and some were under 14, so they can’t be held criminally liable.

Mossos d’Esquadra (Catalonia’s police force) commissioner Silvia Catà described the violence as ‘extreme’ and said it caught officers by surprise. She added that police weren’t dealing with criminal gangs, but with people gathering in groups of three, five or 10 to cause damage or loot shops.

The housing encampment distanced itself from the violence, closed its access to keep rioters out and sheltered families caught in the clashes. Mayor Jaume Collboni said the damage would have consequences for adults and for the parents of any children involved.

The name has been taken from France

The ‘Blocus’ label comes from France, where school pupils have been blockading their schools since late September over overcrowded classrooms, teacher shortages and crumbling buildings. By Friday October 2, about 400 schools were closed and more than 5,000 people had been arrested since the Monday, 85 per cent of them minors, according to Euronews.

Fires damaged school entrances in Paris and a school in Nantes was partly destroyed, while student organisations insisted they were not behind the urban violence. The Spanish call that preceded the Barcelona protest asked for ‘more resources, better facilities’ and enough teachers, ‘as in France’.

A Telegram group wants to loot shops, but only in Barcelona

The most worrying material so far comes from a Telegram group called BLOCUS-BCN 31 OCT, which had more than 1,000 users when it was examined by Maldita. Its messages include explicit calls to rob luxury shops on Halloween, with people told to wear black clothing, hoods and masks and wait to be sent the location of a first shop ‘without police’.

Some users also suggested burning bins to confuse officers, and a few mentioned bringing tools to break glass or incendiary devices. Even the group’s own plans were inconsistent though, with one message giving a meeting time of 6pm and the main text saying a location would be sent at 5pm.

Crucially, that group only names Barcelona, and nothing published so far links it to the calls in Madrid, Algeciras or San Pedro. Maldita also says it hasn’t established whether anyone will attend, who the users really are, or whether any of the claims made in the chat are true.

The group’s creator deleted the chat on Monday morning and restarted it with a ‘peaceful yoga’ theme, which Maldita describes as a change of framing inside the group. A new ‘filtered’ group for those who ‘really want to come’ was planned for Thursday October 29.

Police are investigating the accounts

The Mossos are investigating the TikTok profiles and WhatsApp groups linked to the Barcelona disturbances, and are watching how the call spreads alongside other European police forces. The original Blocus TikTok account deleted itself and all its content after the unrest.

In Madrid, Catà said there were some repercussions but no serious incidents like those in Barcelona. The National Police are reported to be looking into the Algeciras call, though no official statement has been published for San Pedro.

Nobody knows how many will turn up

No follower, view or attendance figures have been published for the Algeciras or San Pedro calls. Reports from both areas stress that the posts don’t prove a single group is behind them, and that their existence doesn’t show a gathering will definitely happen or that there will be any trouble.

The Algeciras posters even ask people to stay calm, avoid dangerous objects and avoid harming people or property. Details such as meeting points and times are still changing, so anyone planning a night out in San Pedro or Algeciras on Saturday October 31 may want to check local police and council updates closer to the day, just in case.