Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin July 2

CLICK HERE FOR THE FEATURE ARTICLES "UK passport u-turn: Brits allowed to use EU eGates in Spain" and "Plane sailing: Ryanair cabin crew strikes"

Summer has officially arrived and although Spain is undoubtedly one of Europe’s top destinations, many people might be thinking twice about booking that holiday this year as chaos reigns in the airports both at home and abroad.

Things are unlikely to improve much anytime soon either with easyJet and British Airways planning to join the party, adding to the disruption already caused by Ryanair strikes.

If you do manage to get on the plane, there’s plenty of good news for British travellers, who learned this week that they’ll be allowed to use the eGate passport scanners at Spanish airports once they arrive. This fast-track system is usually reserved for EU and Schengen zone visitors and should speed things up considerably.

Bummer holidays

Ryanair is the latest to join the travel saga, with its cabin crew striking for better pay and working conditions at the airline’s 10 bases in Spain. Before the industrial action began on Friday June 24, the Ministry of transport warned of untold chaos, claiming that some 2,649 flights and 440,000 passengers would be affected.

The strike isn’t having quite that dramatic an impact, however; in fact, all flights went off without a hitch on the first day and most Spanish airports have only experienced a few daily cancellations. Of course, there are some massive delays on flights too.

Malaga airport is bearing the brunt of the cabin crew strike, but a decree from the government insisting that the airline provides a minimum number of essential services has provided Ryanair with something of a loophole.

On Thursday, for instance, Michael O’ Leary’s company listed every flight into and out of Spain as essential, meaning that staff are obliged to turn up for their shift, strike or no strike. However, the requisite number of cabin crew still wasn’t available to cover all the flights and 28 were cancelled in the end.

The cabin crew union has heavily criticised the airline for forcing its staff to work, and the Spanish government for allowing it.

The situation is little better in Spain once holidaymakers arrive, as post-Brexit rules mean that UK travellers have to stand in the non-EU line to have their passports stamped at the drastically understaffed border control. However, the Spanish Tourist Board in the UK has announced some very promising news: UK tourists will be allowed to use the passport eGates, usually reserved for EU and Schengen zone citizens, in some of the most popular Spanish airports.

According to reports, British citizens can now use the Automated Border Control eGates for Schengen passport holders at the following airports: Alicante, Barcelona, Bilbao, Girona, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Madrid, Málaga, Mallorca, Menorca, Valencia, Fuerteventura, Sevilla and Tenerife Sur.

A word of caution though: in response to the announcement by the Tourist Board, several travellers reported that they sailed through the eGates in no time at all in airports like Palma and Lanzarote, but more Brits reported that their passports wouldn’t scan this week in Madrid and they had to resort to the long queues at border control.

This wouldn’t be the first time the Spanish Tourist Board in the UK has made a blunder either: earlier this year, when the country was still in the grip of the sixth coronavirus wave, the deputy director mistakenly announced that unvaccinated Brits would be granted entry into Spain with just a negative Covid test. While that’s true now, it wasn’t at the time, and the organisation had to apologise for the devastating mistake.

Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin July 2

So our flight eventually took off and we’ve flown through passport security in Spain in record time. It’s time to kick back and relax, right?

Not so fast.

Spain’s crackdown on drunken or disruptive tourists has been well publicised but many destinations are taking things a step further – a step too far, some would say.

The northern Spanish city of San Sebastián is blazing a new trail by pushing through legislation that will allow officials to charge people who get into difficulty and have to be rescued from the sea due to reckless or negligent behaviour.

The mayor of the town described a recent incident where two drunken men had to be pulled from the surf after a night of partying at a whopping cost of 6,000 euros to taxpayers, and said that the new measures are designed “to prevent these types of incidents from happening. The confrontational nature of this law is aimed at making people think twice.”

Be careful if you get caught short at the beach too, as travellers to the picturesque seaside town of Vigo in Galicia have been warned by the local authorities that they face fines of up to 750 euros (£645) if they are caught going to the toilet “in the sea or on the beach.” The city council plans to install public toilets for beachgoers and this season, public urination will be viewed as a “minor infraction” and “an infringement of hygiene and sanitary regulations.”

That’s not all though, as officials are also considering doling out fines to women who wear swimsuits or men who go topless on the streets. Likewise, gas cylinders and barbeques are banned from the beach, as is using shampoo or soap in the water, and tourists who leave their litter on the sand will be penalised.

Under the new bylaws, bathers who try to reserve a spot on the sand by leaving their towels will be fined, as will anyone playing with a ball and bat.

Chilly reception

It’s certainly not a problem that is confined to Spain, but with inflation on the rise and businesses struggling through the post-pandemic economic rebound, it seems that unsolicited calls from all types of companies are never-ending.

You know the type: if it’s not your bank phoning to tell you about their new credit card offer it’s your insurance company waxing lyrical about their new comprehensive ad-ons. The calls themselves may not cost us anything, but they can be irritating and time-consuming.

This is where the Robinson List comes in: anyone can register for free and simply opt-out of receiving cold calls, texts or emails from businesses if they’d rather be left in peace.

If you’ve registered with the Robinson List and indicated, for instance, that you’re ok with emails but not texts or phone calls, businesses have no option but to comply by law.

If cold calls aren’t your problem, there’s a new phone scam doing the rounds that could quickly land you in hot water. As our technology becomes more sophisticated, so do the scams designed to trick us out of our hard-earned cash.

The trick is ever so simple but terribly effective: the target receives a missed call from a foreign number and if curiosity prompts them to call back, they are charged a fortune for their trouble.

The advice from the authorities is simple: if you don’t recognise a number, never, ever call back.

According to the Guardia Civil, missed calls from the following prefixes should be avoided at all costs:

355: Albania
225: Ivory Coast
233: Ghana
234: Nigeria

Unfortunately, scammers are branching out onto Spain’s roads too and the authorities have warned motorists of the notorious ‘highway pirates’ scam, whereby fraudsters convince drivers there is something wrong with their car in order to get them to pull over and rob them. Rental vehicles are more commonly targeted, and scammers have been known to go to such lengths as causing an accident or damaging the other car to pull off their con.

One Murcia-bound couple experienced the scam first-hand recently as they travelled down through Spain from Calais.

The journey is long, the weather is warm, so while driving south on the A1 ring-road the pair decided to stretch their legs and use the facilities at a McDonald’s restaurant located at a petrol station in Madrid.

One of the travellers commented that another car had pulled right up beside their vehicle in the quiet car park, almost touching the door. Thinking little of it, the couple continued on their journey, only to discover they had a puncture a couple of kilometres down the road.

Parking in a safe lay-by, the couple was immediately approached by a man stopped nearby, who advised them they should erect a warning triangle close to their vehicle.

And so enter the highway pirates.

Although the would-be victim was busy directing traffic safely around her own car, she chanced to look back and discovered that a second man had joined them and was busy riffling through their belongings on the back seat. She shouted in alarm, and the pair fled in their own vehicle.

It was only then that the woman’s husband realised that the car was the same model and colour as the one which had parked beside them at the petrol station.

Luckily, on this occasion, the travellers only suffered the expense of a new tyre, but things could have been much worse.

Rising dough

Nobody has escaped the never-ending rise in prices in Spain that have affected everything from fuel and electricity to everyday groceries. It’s little surprise then that inflation in June climbed to 10.2%, its highest level in 37 years, since April 1985.

The statistics show that the main culprits for pushing up inflation have been fuel, food and non-alcoholic beverages, while the rebound in the prices of hotels, cafes and restaurants, now far higher than last year, have also played a part.

Staple grocery items rose by an incredible 11%, the highest they have been since January 1994, while many experts believe that the price of petrol and diesel will almost certainly break the 3-euros per litre barrier by the end of the summer.

The coronavirus pandemic profoundly changed the way people in Spain use their money and the health crisis left its mark on 2021, when household spending increased by 2,250 euros compared to the previous year.

The average household spent 29,243 euros on consumer products, of which almost a third (9,893 euros) went on housing-related expenses like rent, electricity, water and gas. The second largest expenditure was food, which sapped 4,806 euros from the budget, followed by transport (3,230), restaurants and hotels (2,288) and leisure and culture (1,293).

With prices only going up, it’s difficult to blame people being a little peeved, and the sharp increases have hit farmers particularly hard. The changeable weather so far this year, one minute scorching, the next pouring down, has wrecked havoc on already temperamental crops, and now skyrocketing electricity and diesel costs are strangling them.

In an attempt to force the government into action, 400 vehicles, consisting of around 350 tractors and 50 other cars, descended on the streets of Granada this week, forming an impressive caravan under the slogan ‘The price of diesel, the ruin of the countryside.’

Just last week, representatives from the farming community in Spain warned about the “critical” state of the sector, which has amassed losses of more than 32 million euros already this year. With fuel and electricity bills continuously rising, prices “are unaffordable for agricultural holdings and farmers.”

On the plus side, the platform representing self-employed truck drivers across Spain called off strike action planned for July as the Ministry of Transport intervened at the eleventh hour and promised to deliver a decree that guarantees the transport sector won’t have to work at a loss.

Last March, truckers across Spain went on strike for 20 days, causing untold disruption to virtually every industry in the country and the industrial action only came to an end when the government vowed to remedy the situation. The deadline is fast approaching, however, and drivers have threatened industrial action once more if the decree doesn’t materialise in the coming days.

Coronavirus

Spain, like the rest of Europe, is struggling, with daily cases on the rise and fears that hospitals are once again about to come under pressure. Covid just won’t loosen its grip, and the average incidence of infection has skyrocketed to 841 cases while hospital admissions jumped by 23% in the last week.

Despite the worrying data, Andalucía’s health minister is adamant that the region is not in the midst of the dreaded seventh wave, but he has urged people to be vigilant as the busy summer season approaches.

He did acknowledge, however, that the increase in hospitalisations is “significant,” general admissions have climbed to 573 in the last few days although ICU occupancy has dropped by three patients, indicating that the health services are still under “minimal pressure.”

A similar trend can be observed in Alicante this week, where hospitalisations have rebounded significantly since the San Juan bonfire celebrations (June 23/24). Currently, 5.5% of hospital beds in the Valencian Community are occupied by patients with Covid, which places the region at medium risk. The situation in intensive care units is more positive, with 3.3% of the beds occupied.

The situation is little different in the Region of Murcia, although a significant rise in infections hasn’t yet translated into hospital pressure. However, incidence rate in the Region has increased by 50% in people over the age of 60 in the last week alone to stand at 669 cases per 100,000.

With the threat of Covid still looming large, the Council of the EU made the call on Tuesday to extend the validity of Covid Passports for another year. Even though most European countries don’t bother using them anymore, at least not for travel, the powers that be, possibly sensing that the situation is going to worsen, want to keep the option open to reintroduce this powerful control measure.

For all the latest coronavirus news and updates in Spain, use the following link: CORONAVIRUS LATEST NEWS

Murcia

As food, energy and fuel costs rise exorbitantly across Spain and most of us are forced to cut back wherever we can, there was news to the contrary in Murcia this week with the announcement public transport prices in the city will be slashed by 30 per cent.

Bus and metro users will pay almost a third less for their passes from September 1 thanks to direct aid from the Spanish government as part of its crisis plan for the war in Ukraine.

Using Next Generation funds, the local authorities will also build 43 km of bus lanes in Murcia along with 44 km of bike lanes, which will generate 100 new kilometres of bicycle paths in the municipality.

In addition, the government will create more than 2,400 spaces in six new park-and-ride facilities.

And there has been welcomed news for motorists too this week with the arrival of summer and a relaxation of parking requirements during the high season.

From July 1, parking in blue zones will be completely free on Saturdays, but drivers will still have to pay during the rest of the week, between 9am and 2pm and again from 5pm to 8pm Monday-Friday.

Motorists don’t have to pay to park in blue zones on Sundays or bank holidays and from August 1, parking will be free every day.

The good news just keeps coming. A major victory is being celebrated by hospitality bosses in Murcia city after the council this week agreed to allow bars and restaurants to set up tables in parking spaces for another year.

According to councillor Juan Fernando Hernández Piernas, around 150 businesses have extended their outdoor terraces to adjoining parking spots throughout the municipality, added to more than 400 that had the authorisation pre-pandemic.

The council initially agreed to let bars and restaurants expand into the streets at the height of the pandemic, and now the measure will continue until the end of 2022 with the option of applying for another one year extension after that.

However, the move hasn’t gained unanimous support, however, and several political parties abstained from voting until complaints from neighbourhood associations are evaluated, which have criticised the lack of parking in the municipality.

The Mar Menor regularly makes headlines and not always for the right reasons. This week the Murcian Government announced it has removed 10,509 tonnes of biomass from the Mar Menor since January 1 - six times more than the average extracted each year since 2017. The intensified cleaning efforts have made it possible to avoid another “catastrophe” in the salt-water lagoon, according to the experts responsible for monitoring the area.

Spokesperson for the Scientific Advisory Committee, Emilio María Dolores, explained that technicians have been removing biomass for several years but at values "much lower" than today, mainly because “this year there is a greater proliferation of algae” as more harmful nutrients make their way into the Mar Menor.

But the good news is that the situation appears to be somewhat under control; on Monday June 27 technicians took water samples from 45 different areas of the Mar Menor and reported that oxygen levels were “normal.”

Tragically, there was nothing paramedics could do to save a woman who was killed in a horror crash with a lorry on the A-7 in Lorca this week. A female passenger was seriously hurt in the collision near Saprelorca industrial estate

Fire crews worked for an hour to free the two women from the wreckage, but tragically the passenger died on impact. After being freed and stabilised by an 061 medical team, the driver was taken to Virgen de la Arrixaca hospital in Murcia with "very serious injuries".

Distressing details this week came to light in the case of a pedestrian who was seriously injured and later died in a hit and run in Mazarrón last weekend. The latest police reports indicate that the 80-year-old man was thrown from a moving vehicle on Sunday morning, June 26 and although he was quickly taken to the Virgen de la Arrixaca Hospital, he died 24 hours later from a head injury.

According to eye-witnesses, the octogenarian was tossed from a minivan at La Isla, next to the la Ermita bar, which proceeded to run over him and flee from the scene in the direction of Bolnuevo.

Detectives investigating the case believe that the elderly man was tricked into getting into the car and subsequently robbed before his captors threw him out of the moving vehicle. Officers are now trying to track down those responsible, who will face murder charges.

In crazy scenes reminiscent of a bad Fast and Furious film, police in Murcia arrested a motorist caught driving with a passenger holding onto the bonnet of the car in the San Pío X neighbourhood of the city.

A short while later, Murcia Local Police dealt with two other incidents involving drunk drivers who were both arrested, one of which led to a crash in Avenida Ciudad de Almería when the driver smashed into a lamppost. The car was badly damaged but nobody was hurt.

And finally, the dust hasn't even settled on the hugely successful Rock Imperium Fest in Cartagena last weekend, which attracted around 40,000 rock fans eager to see acts such Scorpions and Europe, and it has already been announced that topping the bill at next year's festival will be the legendary band Deep Purple.

Nothing is set in stone and lots can change before the scheduled event on June 23 and 24, 2023, as was demonstrated by the late withdrawal of Whitesnake shortly before their anticipated appearance this year, but this represents a great coup for the organisers of the 2022 festival.

The first tickets for Rock Imperium 2023 are already on sale and can be purchased through the website rockimperiumfestival.es.

Check out our EVENTS DIARY to see everything going on in Murcia:

Spain

British Airways is about to heap even more misery on weary travellers as its check-in staff and ground-handling crew have voted overwhelmingly to go on strike at Heathrow Airport this summer after talks over wage increases have reached a stalemate.

The airline’s ground staff are demanding a reversal of the 10% pay cut they took at the height of the coronavirus pandemic, when some 13,000 workers were let go by the carrier, allegedly heaping even more pressure on the remaining employees.

BA has responded by offering a one-off 10% bonus but this has been roundly rejected.

No dates have yet been set for the strike action, with the unions hoping that BA will come up with a better offer for staff, but if it goes ahead it is expected to happen at the end of July and August.

With all the crazy price hikes it remains to be seen how we’ll even be able to afford to go on holiday this year, but the Spanish government is doing its bit to ease the burden a little. Measures like the 20-cent per litre fuel bonus (which has done virtually nothing to lower the cost) and reduced taxes on electricity (which has done virtually nothing to lower the cost) will remain in place until December, rather than October as was originally planned.

In addition, the ever-generous government is offering aid of a whopping 200 euros to self-employed business people whose family units bring in less than 14,000 euros per year, and non-contributory retirement and disability pensions will be increased by 15%, which represents an extra 60 euros every month.

Spain made international headlines this week after hundreds of migrants stormed the Moroccan border in an attempt to enter the north African enclave of Melilla.

According to Spanish officials, around 1,500 migrants attempted to breach the border with a third of them getting through, but in the security scuffle which ensued, at least 23 people were killed. Immediately, human rights campaigners in Spain and Morocco called for probes in both countries and the former's Prosecutors' Office confirmed on Thursday June 28 that an investigation into the death of "several dozen people on the Melilla border" will be opened and carried out by the Specialised Immigration Prosecutor.

The incident has been called a “massacre” by Algerian authorities and has caused outrage across the globe, with hundreds of people demonstrating in cities in Spain against migration policies in the aftermath of the tragedy.

In Madrid, a rally was held in Callao, where scores of people chanted "no human being is illegal".

With international relations strained, Spain this week had the honour of hosting a historic NATO summit in Madrid, welcoming the 30 leaders of the Atlantic Alliance and necessitating the largest security deployment the capital has ever seen, with more than 10,000 officers, military planes and helicopters.

As expected, the NATO summit discussions were dominated by the Russian invasion and the threat posed by Vladimir Putin, but the pending membership of Finland and Sweden was open for debate, as well as the extension and reinforcement of the alliance’s troops on European soil.

As is the case each summer, it seems that hardly a week goes by without reports of a tourist tragedy in Spain. Last Friday, a young British man was killed while attempting to climb the notorious Devil’s Pass, or Paso del Diablo, a 4,367-metre limestone mountain in the Basque area of Anboto. The 25-year-old’s body was found by a rescue team on the morning of June 24.

According to official reports, the Briton began the difficult climb with a pal the previous day and decided to try and reach the top by himself after his friend turned back.

It is believed that the young Brit may have been trying to descend from Devil’s Pass when a storm hit, making the way treacherous.

Alicante

With summer fast approaching and the imminent arrival of a rush of tourists growing ever closer, coastal towns across the province are busy getting themselves beach ready.

Benidorm is arguably the tourist capital of the Costa Blanca, and the resort's summer population is expected to increase three-fold during the height of the holiday season in July and August.

So, to ensure the hugely popular resort is prepared for the mammoth tourist influx, the Town Hall has ramped up its street cleaning and rubbish collection workforce with the recruitment of 51 extra staff.

The cleaning fleet has also been boosted with an additional two rubbish collection vans and extra shifts have been introduced to clean and pressure wash pavements. During the night, a cleaning team will also hit the streets to do the same and spruce up leisure areas, parks and gardens for the early risers.

Meanwhile, Alicante has great plans for its hugely popular Doggy Beach at Agua Amarga, which has proved to be a massive crowd-puller since opening in 2016.

Alicante City & Beach Tourist Board is currently looking for someone to manage the pet-friendly beach services until 2025 and has put out to tender a three-year contract that this year includes an additional food truck and terrace along with regular seasonal features such as a bar, sunshades and loungers for beachgoers and their furry friends.

"The 'Doggy Beach already has a lifeguard and rescue service from June to September and a dog park, so this tender for the food truck and the parasol area would be a complementary service that would vastly improve the canine beach," explained deputy mayor Mari Carmen Sánchez.

And as seasonal populations soar with the arrival of overseas visitors, so too does the volume of traffic on the province's roads, in particular the A-7, the busiest section of which is undergoing a 7.4 million-euro revamp.

Work is being carried out on the most saturated stretch of the motorway between El Campello, Alicante and Elche, focusing on the A-7 Alicante ring road, Elche-Crevillent and Camino de Castilla dual carriageways, along with the N-332 El Campello and Alicante bypass.

The A-70 has an annual average daily intensity of more than 50,000 vehicles along its entire route, but on the section between the access to San Vicente del Raspeig and the University of Alicante and the junction with the A-31, at the height of Mercalicante, it reaches 100,000.

The motorway improvements, which began this week, are expected to take seven months, and will be carried out at night to reduce disruptions to motorists.

Elsewhere in the province, motorists are up in arms in Crevillente over the questionable use of a speed radar.

Laser technology incorporated into new generation speed radars adopted by Spain's DGT in 2018 has opened up a whole new world of road surveillance for police, allowing them to measure the speed of vehicles literally anywhere they want to.

And in Crevillente, the "sneaky" use of one of these Velolaser speed radars has sparked outrage after a photo of the device and a Local Police officer hidden between a large waste container and a recycling bin was shared by SocialDrive on Twitter.

Most of the comments from social media users have been of "indignation", with one suggesting that the concealment of the radar "only seeks to punish economically rather than ensure safety on the road".

"I will never understand... the radar 'is for our safety' but you allow the manufacture of cars that reach speeds of up to 300km/h to drive on roads where it is prohibited to drive faster than 120km/h...Is (the radar) for my security or is it to raise money?" questioned a tweeter.

Meanwhile, colleagues have been busy cracking down on crime, and this week caught up with a greengrocer who used a 'Dirty Harry' style gun to carry out robberies, bagging more than 350,000 euros.

The shopkeeper, named only as Pedro, was arrested five years ago for holding up seven banks across the Region of Murcia and neighbouring Alicante and became infamous for using the same revolver sported by Clint Eastwood in the ‘Dirty Harry’ films. After escaping from jail, Pedro spent four years evading capture, outwitting law enforcement at every turn.

Astonishingly, through a series of disguises, he was able to continue running his greengrocer business in the Alicante town of Hondón de los Frailes, where he was eventually nabbed over the weekend.

The suspect was finally tracked down and has been put behind bars, along with two accomplices accused of helping him to hide in the Vega Alta de Segura region.

A criminal network that allegedly produced and shipped designer drugs, such as a synthetic substance known as 'zombie', to the UK, USA and across Spain, has also been brought down in Alicante.

Working in collaboration with the HSI (Homeland Security Investigations) of Buffalo (USA), the Guardia Civil raided three properties in Alicante and El Campello, one of which turned out to be a drug laboratory where police seized 45 kilos of methamphetamines with a chemical composition compatible with Alpha-PHP, a modification of the 'zombie drug'.

The organisation apparently set up a website with a domain located in Germany that took "thousands of orders", which after being paid for in cryptocurrencies were prepared and sent by post.

The activities have been thwarted by police and two men and a woman, all of Czech nationality have been arrested.

Andalucía

It was all excitement in Andalucía this week when a 22-year-old man of dual British and Spanish nationality was arrested in the Huelva town of Hinojos after being accused of murder. The fugitive, along with three others, allegedly stabbed a man to death in the United Kingdom before fleeing for Andalucía in Spain in August 2021.

The suspect, identified only by his initials OBP, was the subject of an International Arrest Warrant sent to more than 30 countries by Interpol NCB Manchester, which is part of the UK's National Crime Agency.

Staying with the courts, a tragic story emerged in Malaga that sadly, did not have a particularly happy ending. The judge sentenced three people who were responsible for the care of vulnerable animals to 15 months each in prison after it found 105 dogs in a tragic situation of “abandonment” and living in a “deplorable state of health.” After the abused animals were rescued, only 42 survived.

The animals were found in an enclosure in Cortijo Maroto in the Malaga town of Rincon de la Victoria back in 2017, crawling with lice and ticks, malnourished, suffering from horrific ailments and living in their own filth.

Even though the dogs were taken to another reputable shelter and nursed with every care, the vast majority of them didn’t make it.

In addition to the prison sentences, all three perpetrators have been disqualified from any trade or profession related to animals and from owning pets for a period of three years. They have also been ordered to compensate the second shelter for the costs associated with caring for the neglected dogs.

Malaga was also the scene of a tragic car accident this week which claimed the lives of three youngsters.

A 22-year-old driver and two teens aged 15 and 16 died on the A-374 after fleeing a police checkpoint in Ronda, Malaga.

Officers tried to flag down the Mercedes sports car in which the three young men were travelling when they spotted one of them throwing something out of the window but the driver failed to stop, instead speeding away along a dimly-lit, tree-lined road.

The police lost sight of the car but minutes later, a call came in from Ronda Local Police reporting a serious crash involving a Mercedes at kilometre 30 of the A-374, an area known as La Dehesa.

The vehicle had careered off the road and plunged down a 15-metre embankment, and the three occupants were trapped inside the "mass of iron wreckage".

Ronda Police confirmed the driver and two passengers were "in a bad state", and Emergencies activated the entire rescue protocol with firefighters, medical and law enforcement personnel. On arrival, there was nothing medics could do but confirm their deaths.

Meanwhile, police in Los Barrios in Cadiz have issued a desperate appeal for help in finding the mother of a baby whose lifeless body was discovered by an employee at a waste plant.

The newborn is not believed to have been delivered at a health centre or hospital and the "white mother" didn't follow normal Andalucían Health Service 'pregnancy protocols' as there is no record of the birth, according to the Guardia.

In addition, the landfill where the baby was found collects waste from all the towns in Campo de Gibraltar, as well as Ceuta and Gibraltar itself, which "makes it difficult to locate the mother of the child due to the wide search range".

"We are hoping that members of the public can provide new information to help locate a white woman who was in an advanced state of pregnancy at the end of May and who does not currently have any babies in her care," said police.

You may have missed…

Orihuela reinstates Blue-Zone parking after five-month suspension
The Parking Management and Regulation Service (ORA) has been reactivated across the Vega Baja town in Alicante.
Murcia Fire Service recruits its first ever female driver
27 new recruits were sworn into Murcia city's fire fighting service and Local Police this week.
Spain confirms 800 cases of monkeypox including one young child
Sixteen autonomous communities throughout Spain have now confirmed monkeypox infections.
Murcian rioters arrested after fan was fatally stabbed ahead of Spanish Copa del Rey final in Sevilla
Seven other people have also been charged with rioting and public disorder in Andalucia.
New trans law allows teens in Spain to change their gender on ID documents
The draft bill on transgender rights aims to "depathologise identity recognition."

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