Shocking video footage shows migrants landing on packed Spanish beach and ask naked sunbathers for water
Stunned tourists looked on as dozens of migrants landed on a crowded Spanish beach and bolted across the sand. As the shaky wooden boat reached the shoreline, migrants were seen jumping off the vessel in a footage taken by vacationers. At the scene, two men interrupted a game of beach tennis while a dad was seen moving his children out of the way in the said video, reports Daily Mail.
In another incident during the mass arrival, a woman was injured. Quite a few tourists strolling along the water's edge broke into a sprint to join the crowd milling around her. The events transpired at a beach in Zahora, in the province of Cadiz, near the headland of Cape Trafalgar on Saturday at around lunchtime. It happened just one day after scores of migrants were seen storming a beach in Tarifa, further east from the aforementioned location.
After distancing themselves from the boat they had arrived on, known as a patera in Spanish, witnesses recalled that many of the migrants were asking for food and water from beachgoers. The president of Spain’s National Federation of Self-Employed Workers, Lorenzo Amor, was present at the time on the beach.
He tweeted: “Arrival of a new patera on the coast of Cadiz. Right now at Zahora beach next to the Trafalgar lighthouse. The people inside the boat asking sunbathers who are on the beach for food.” That said, one woman migrant was in need of immediate medical attention as she was filmed lying on the sand. It was later revealed she had hurt her arm but had sustained non-life-threatening injuries. More than a dozen boats were rescued by coastguards in the Strait of Gibraltar the same day.
A sports hall in Los Barrios near the southern port of Algeciras had been set aside by officials in Andalucia after they rescued 284 migrants from the region.
Local supermarkets rushed to their rescue by providing milk, juice, and biscuits while the Algeciras townhall made water available to the distressed travelers. Judging by these rising influx, the number of migrants and refugees entering Spain via the popular Mediterranean route could soon exceed last year’s figure, according to the inter-governmental organization International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
After Italy's new Interior Minister Matteo Salvini introduced a hardline blanket ban on migrant boats entering the country’s ports, Spain has become the preferred destination for migrant arrivals in Europe. According to the IOM, the number of the refugees using the western Mediterranean route to reach Spain stands at 20,992 just for the period between January 1 and July 25 - a considerable spike as compared to last year when the total was close to 22,108 for the entire year. According to the mayor of Algeciras, Jose Ignacio Landaluce, his city risked becoming "the new Lampedusa, the Italian island which has been overrun with migrants."
However, after visiting the area the day before, Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande Marlaska tried to placate concerned citizens by saying that the situation was “exceptional” but under control. Nonetheless, he called for a “European solution” for a European problem.