Chilean family spends four days in "no-admittance" room at Madrid airport

MADRID.- A Chilean family has spent the past four days in the “no admittance” room at the Madrid-Barajas Airport after being denied entrance into Spain by border-police officials.  The family was denied entrance after they failed to produce a letter of invitation – a document which, according to the travelers, is not required for Chilean citizens.

Jeny Mella, a sister of two of the three individuals being held, told EFE that she had gone to the Móstoles (a Madrid suburb) to obtain the letter of invitation for her relatives and that police agents had assured her that “Chilean citizens” do not require the document.

“And now the reason they will not allow them into Spain is because they don’t have that document”, she stated.

Mella explained that her sisters and her brother-in-law arrived at 8:00 AM local time this past Sunday on an Air Comet flight from Santiago and that, after being held in the “no-admittance” room for four days, they plan to return to Chile early tomorrow morning.