IT is the holiday hotspot where Kate Moss likes to unwind and Katy Perry has frolicked on the beach.
But officials in Formentera say the idyllic island off mainland Spain has become the latest gateway into Europe for small boat migrants heading on to soft-touch Britain, leaving them completely overwhelmed.
ib3.orgTourists look on as migrants walk from small boat to shore in Es Copinar area of Formentera[/caption]
Andrew StyczynskiShop owner Mimouna Lamhandi has seen exhausted arrivals wading towards shore[/caption]
Andrew StyczynskiThe Riu hotel in Calo Des Mort, where top footballers stay, faces the spot where 300 people climbed off rickety vessels two weeks ago[/caption]
Ruthless Algerian mafia gangs have opened up the route following a crackdown on illegal migration into Italy and Greece, and record numbers are now making the dangerous crossing from north Africa, with almost 5,000 asylum seekers reaching the Balearic islands this year.
Victor Tur’s Escupina restaurant overlooks picturesque Calo Des Mort beach, where footballers rub shoulders with bikini-clad supermodels.
He is worried that tourists will stop visiting Formentera if it becomes Spain’s Lampedusa — the Mediterranean island which was besieged with asylum seekers before the Italian and Tunisian coastguards cut the number crossing by 77 per cent last year.
Victor, 59, told The Sun: “The situation is horrible and we can’t cope with so many people landing here.
“They will pull up on the beach at all times of day and they sometimes let off flares to alert the coastguard.
“We’ve seen 20 boats landing in the space of a few days, and these vessels — mainly rigid inflatables with two motors — are transporting hundreds of people every week.
“This has been going on for years but previously it was just the occasional boat and it was all young men from Algeria and Morocco.
“Now the boats are coming all the time and it’s people from many different countries.
“We see women and children landing, which breaks my heart, and the migrants are in very bad condition after so long at sea.
‘Government in Spain isn’t doing anything to help’
“A friend told me he took 15 people into his house to give them food and water because they were starving.
“Also, there are dangerous people among the migrants and we know that the mafia runs the smuggling operation. Big money is involved.
“The scrapyard near here is now full of abandoned boats and motors and the government in Spain isn’t doing anything to help us.
“If this continues the tourists won’t want to come here any more.”
Figures obtained by The Sun show 4,796 migrants in 256 boats reached the Balearic archipelago between January and August this year.
That is almost twice the number that reached the region in the whole of 2024, when 2,801 arrived in 151 vessels — dubbed “pateras” in Spain.
This year, 2,945 migrants transported by 147 boats landed on Majorca. Meanwhile, 268 people using 18 boats washed up in Ibiza, while the remainder — 1,583 migrants carried by 91 boats — made the 210-mile journey from Algeria to Formentera, which is the smallest of the Balearic islands at just 32sq miles.
By contrast, only 12 boats carrying 154 asylum seekers reached the island in 2021.
Overall, irregular migration to Spain has fallen this year, but it has risen by almost 200 per cent in the Balearics, official data shows.
The situation is horrible and we can’t cope with so many people landing here
Victor Tur
Arrivals in the Canaries — the previous main gateway into Spain — fell by 46 per cent in January to July this year, thanks to tightened controls, while officials in the Balearic Islands — Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza and Formentera — say they feel abandoned.
“Where is the government of Pedro Sanchez?” Balearic regional leader Marga Prohens posted on X/Twitter, referring to Spain’s prime minister, who is the leader of PSOE, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party.
Migrants landing on Formentera are ferried to mainland Spain via Ibiza, and 54 per cent of them are from sub-Saharan Africa.
Experts say a significant number will then take buses to northern France so they can try to cross the Channel to England.
Spain has become the weak link in the EU border fence following a crackdown by European agency Frontex on irregular migration across the Continent, which has resulted in the numbers arriving in the EU plummeting by 25 per cent in the first quarter of this year.
Konestory, a 20-year-old South Sudanese migrant, told Reuters in the Majorcan capital Palma that he paid $2,000 to board a boat from Algeria, which took 46 hours to reach the islands. The passengers faced “a lot of waves”, ran out of food and water, and got lost.
He said: “Now I’m happy. I’m looking at ways to talk to my mum to give her the information that I reached here.”
SplashKaty Perry shot a music video on the island last year[/caption]
Andrew StyczynskiVictor Tur has seen women and children landing near his restaurant but fears the crisis will eventually drive tourists away[/caption]
BackGridJeff Bezos and wife Lauren Sanchez enjoying a trip to the Balearic island this month[/caption]
The human rights collective Caminando Fronteras says 328 migrants died or went missing while trying to make it to the Balearics in the first five months of this year.
That makes the Algeria route the second-most deadly gateway to Spain, ranking above the sea journey to the Canaries where 1,482 died or disappeared in the same timeframe.
Formentera, where dead migrants are buried in unmarked graves, is better known for its white sand beaches and turquoise waters, which featured in the video for Katy Perry’s single Lifetimes last year.
It is a retreat where A-listers such as model Kate Moss and actor Leonardo DiCaprio enjoy bohemian restaurants and bars in private.
Now I’m happy. I’m looking at ways to talk to my mum to give her the information that I reached here
Konestory, a 20-year-old South Sudanese migrant
But locals complain they cannot cope with so many new arrivals.
The Red Cross, which normally helps process migrants, still does not have an office on Formentera.
There is no Frontex presence, while the only coastguard vessel, based in the port of La Salina, is an “old boat” and has been out of service for weeks, admits Balearic coastguard chief Jose Ramon Crespi.
There have been claims that officials prioritise the rescue of wealthy tourists swimming in the sea or sailing in their expensive boats.
‘They look like they haven’t eaten for days’
Local police are also unhappy about the sharp increase in crossings. Luis Bernardo Fernandez, the provincial secretary for the Unified Association of Civil Guards, told the Sun: “Patrol officers from other units have been withdrawn and diverted to help deal with immigrants who are arriving.
“It means other officers are having to cover their beat as well are taking longer to respond to emergencies. This is very serious and compromises everyone’s safety.
“We know the people-smuggling mafias have turned to the Balearic Islands because of the increasing difficulties they have reaching Italy.
“It’s going to get worse without political will and real solutions, like more resources, and one of the problems we are seeing at the moment is a lack of coordination.
“We had a situation earlier this month where a ‘patera’ reached the uninhabited island of Cabrera, south of Majorca at 4.30pm.
“Despite the immigrants phoning the 112 emergency number and giving the operators their coordinates, the 14 occupants of the boat were left unattended in extreme conditions until just before midnight.”
Lifeguard Daniel Maqueda mans the beach next to the Riu hotel where Premier League footballers including Diego Costa have holidayed in the past.
Daniel, 36, said: “Two weeks ago we had 300 people landing on the beach. This year we’ve had two or three landing on average every day when the weather is good.
“I’ve been working here for seven months and for the tourists it’s strange to see arrivals from sub- Saharan Africa in small boats.
“But you never see any footage of this on the news.
“They don’t want people to know about it because we have celebrities and footballers staying here and it will put them off coming back.”
We see these overcrowded boats pulling up to the shore then the people wading towards the beach and collapsing
Mimouna Lamhandi, who runs a shop selling designer clothes on Calo Des Mort
Mimouna Lamhandi, 27, runs a shop selling designer clothes on Calo Des Mort. She said: “We see these overcrowded boats pulling up to the shore then the people wading towards the beach and collapsing.
“They look exhausted and like they haven’t eaten in days.”
A local shop worker called Carola, who declined to give her last name, claimed she once saw a migrant boat landing in full view of holidaying Amazon boss Jeff Bezos.
She said: “I see the refugee boats being knocked around by waves and it breaks my heart.
“I heard about one boat that spent ten days adrift at sea. My friend saw them when they landed and they were barely alive.
“I was on the beach once and I saw the Amazon boss’s boat with a helicopter landing on its deck. A migrant patera was just 100 metres away, but did Bezos do anything to help? No.”
Spain’s left-wing government has also been accused of turning a blind eye, but central government delegate for the region Alfonso Rodriguez insists that claims Formentera has become Spanish Lampedusa are a “little exaggerated.”
He added: “I totally refute that there isn’t control. There is control and that is exercised by the Civil Guard in Formentera and the national police in Ibiza.
“I hope that by the middle of September there will be a small installation in the port on Formentera where migrants can wait before being transferred to Ibiza with the assistance not only of the Civil Guard but also of the Red Cross.”
EPAPassengers on overloaded small boat arriving at Mediterranean island of Lampedusa in 2023 – before authorities drastically cut the numbers making the hazardous crossing[/caption]