Mayor of Algeciras claims Spanish town is now ‘migrant crisis epicentre’

MAYOR Jose Ignacio Landaluce has said his ‘town couldn’t cope’ as around 1,600 migrants land in Spain, arriving predominantly in Algeciras last week.

Landaluce has criticized the EU, warning that Algeciras could become ‘the new Lampedusa’, a Italian town that has struggled to cope with the recent migrant crisis.

The Mayor of Algeciras, has called for caution: “We’ve never, ever, ever had 1,000 migrants arriving in Spain each weekend. And all this could just be for starters.

“There’s a lot of the summer left and there are thousands and thousands of migrants arriving on the coasts of north Africa and thousands and thousands more who have been waiting to cross for months or years.”

The news comes after the Spanish Maritime Service had to rescue 1,000 migrants fleeing Africa and were picked up in the Strait of Gibraltar last weekend.

A survivor from a capsized wreckage was also transferred to a Spanish hospital after being found next to two dead bodies in Palma, Mallorca.