A group of Brazilian volunteers that helps recovering drug addicts was detained in Madrid and later deported, Brazilian daily O Globo reported Friday.
The Catholic group was enroute to visit a charity project in Germany when they were detained for more than 26 hours at the Madrid airport before being deported. Only one of the five volunteers was allowed to travel to Germany.
"We felt vexed by their disrespect," said Elza Cortez, who was going to Germany to visit her daughter near Berlin. She and the other volunteers arrived in Madrid on Wednesday but along with about 20 other countrymen had to fly back to Brazil on Thursday.
"The policemen took away all our medicine and there were people feeling ill, sick people with heart conditions, and an eight-month pregnant lady," Cortez said.
Spanish police alleged that the volunteers were detained because they were not able to present the proper documents and did not have the financial resources necessary to continue their trip.
But Mathias Laminski, the German Catholic priest who invited the volunteers to Germany, denied those allegations.
Laminski said the Spanish guards were sarcastic when talking to him on the phone, saying that a decision to detain the volunteers or not depended "on the boss' mood."
At the beginning of this year, diplomatic relations between Brazil and Spain were strained after Brazilians were repeatedly detained for long hours and then deported.