Voted Best
ISSUE NO. 1750
17 - 23 January 2019
Newspaper in Spain 2017 & 2018
A XARQUÍA - C OSTA T ROPICAL YOUR PAPER, YOUR VOICE, YOUR OPINION
Race against time to find toddler Credit: Bomberos de Malaga
RESCUE teams rushing to find a two-year-old boy who fell down a 107-metre well in the Sierra de Totalan on Sunday have unearthed human hair belonging to the toddler. Government delegate in Andalucia, Alfonso Rodriquez Gomez de Celis, told Spanish press ‘some hair was found in the tunnel and the tests carried out by the Guardia Civil certify that it is the child’s.’ He added that ‘this gives us confirmation that the child is there, in that well.’ Members of the Guardia Civil claim the size of the shaft - 25 centimetres in diameter - has made it difficult for workers to gain access to the child. An initial attempt to send a camera down the hole, which was reportedly dug during a search for water, failed after a blockade of sand and stones proved impassable at around 73 metres deep. At the time of going to press, workers said they are now digging a second, wider tunnel which they will connect to the first well, allowing them access to the bottom of the hole. Julen’s parents had taken the child for a day out from their home in El Palo, Mala-
Credit: Guardia Civil
by Sally Underwood
RESCUE RACE: Workers are trying to recover Julen after he fell down a 25centimetre hole (inset). ga, along with other members of the family. Father, Jose, has since criticised ‘the lack of technical means in the first hours of the rescue’ and hit out at ‘doubts’ which have been raised about whether the child is actually in the well at all. He told El Pais ‘I wish it were impossible for him to be
inside the well, like I’ve heard it being said,’ adding ‘I wish it was me buried down there.’ Outraged locals are now querying why the speculative hole - which is required by law to be covered - was left open. The man allegedly responsible for digging the well, Antonio Sanchez, told
Spanish media he had covered the opening with stones and dirt. This is the second tragedy to hit the distraught family. The parents lost their threeyear-old son Oliver last spring, when he died of a sudden heart attack while walking down the street with his parents in 2017.
WWW.EUROWEEKLYNEWS.COM
Brexit worries by Joe Gerrard BRITISH expatriates in Spain were left facing more uncertainty over how Brexit will affect them after MPs in London voted to reject Prime Minister Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement on Tuesday. MPs voted the deal down by a margin of 432 to 202, the biggest parliamentary defeat of any government since 1924. May said every day that passed without the issue being resolved meant more uncertainty, more bitterness and more rancour. “I have always believed that the best way forward is to leave in an orderly way with a good deal,” the Prime Minister said on Tuesday. The rejection of the deal, which included protections for British citizens legally registered in EU countries including Spain, leaves expatriates in an uncertain situation. Anne Hernandez, president of the Brexpats in Spain expa-
triate advocacy group, told Euro Weekly News she was “extremely concerned” about the result. “There are more than 300,000 British people here who work and have invested in the Spanish economy. “We can be thankful that bilateral agreements have been reached between London and Madrid which protect some of our rights. “Other than that all I can say to expatriates is to make sure they are legally registered as residents in Spain,” Hernandez said. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Madrid regretted the result of the vote. “Spain is working on contingency measures and it is prioritising the rights of citizens and residents,” Sanchez said. The result of Wednesday’s no confidence vote remained uncertain at the time of this newspaper’s publication. See inside for more of our coverage on Brexit.