Torrevieja demands help to limit the activity of it’s ‘looky looky’ men

The same picture is repeated up and down the coastline, in Santa Pola, Guardamar and especially Orihuela Costa, but it would now appear that the Torrevieja Council has had enough.

This week they have asked the National Police to become involved, using their immigration powers on those illicit traders, mainly of Senegalese nationality, who are in the country illegally.

Every year their presence is repeated on the Torrevieja promenade along the seafront promenades, a long line of street vendors without a license to trade, manteros, who during the months of July and August take over the area from the beginning of the promenade in Hombre del Mar to the end of the Avenida de los Marineros on La Playa del Cura.

On the other side of the walkway, the occupation with tables and chairs of the hospitality industry that, in many cases, takes advantage of the lack of municipal

Torrevieja Drug

control to occupy much more of an area than that to which they are entitled.

Between both activities, a central corridor with a thread of passers-by trying to move along between those who stop to buy counterfeit products and those who consume their food and drink whilst sitting on the terraces, a narrow corridor that in some sections of the promenade is only a metre or two wide.

The promenade is an area of transit under the responsibility of the Generalitat and the General Directorate of Coasts, which has been looking the other way for many years.

Federico Alarcón, Torrevieja Councillor for Security, explained that to deal with this situation, that occurs daily, and which intensifies in the high season, the municipality will now undertake specific action.

Initially he will issue the sub-delegate of the Government in Alicante, Araceli Poblador, with an extensive photo-

Traffickers Highlighted In Swedish Diplomatic Visit

Spainís Secretary of State for Security, Rafael PÈrez, met this week with the Prime Minister of Sweden, Ulf Kristersson, to whom he explained the police coordination mechanisms in Spain and the work carried out by the Intelligence Centre against Terrorism and Organised Crime (CITCO), highlighting a case that saw drug traffickers with links to Torrevieja arrested.

Among examples of successfully completed operations, he spoke of the case of Furniture-Candinavia, an action carried out in 2021 by a Joint Investigation Team between Spain and Sweden where the police intervention saw the arrest in Spain and Sweden of 71 people who were part of a network of drug traffickers.

ASwedish removal company, with offices in Torrevieja and San Pedro de Alc·ntara, transported the drug from Spain, hiding it in legal consignments.

The investigation also made it possible to dismantle the network that introduced the substances from Morocco, as graphic report carried out by the City Council on the situation. This will be done at the local security meeting scheduled for this week, which the subdelegation is expected to attend, along with commanders of the Local Police, the Civil Guard, National Police, and Autonomous Police, which usually intensifies its presence during the summer. well as the procedure for channelling illicit funds through luxury real estate investments.

In addition, Alarcón has requested the express collaboration of the National Police to intensify the immigration controls on those street vendors that trade without a license, for the most part of Senegalese origin.

Another of the measures being considered is the display of billboards warning of the penalties to anyone who buys such counterfeit products. At the moment any surveillance is limited to the periods when the Local Police and Civil Guard patrols are free of other services and can patrol on foot along the promenade.

They do not recommend putting fish or other predators in garden fountains or ornamental ponds, but they do advise hermetically covering the water tanks.

They have also called for removal of old tyres and putting boats, wheelbarrows or trailers under cover, or turning them upside down and covering them with tarpaulins, as well as emptying sewers and drains.

The Council has also confirmed that the municipal pest team continues with the fumigation against the tiger mosquito in the urban area of Torrevieja, especially in areas such as parks, sports and school centres, and the forgotten land of the urbanisations which surround the biggest masses of still water in the area, the salt lakes.

During the meeting, PÈrez and Kristersson promised to continue strengthening police cooperation between the two countries in the fight against organised crime, an effort that has made it possible to reduce the presence of Swedish citizens in criminal organisations that operate in Spain by two points in the last four years.

Meanwhile, if you get nipped by a mozzie, there´s an app for that! Not to ease the pain or discomfort, but through citizen science, you can notify the authorities of your bite, especially if you spot any large swarms hanging around.

It is the Spanish national Government who are promoting the initiative, in collaboration with the Centre for the Coordination of Alerts and Sanitary Emergencies of the Ministry of Health, Mosquito Alert has planned a communicative and informative action to promote citizen participation with the slogan 'If it bites you, notify!'. The objective is to study the expansion of the tiger mosquito beyond its known limit of distribution in Spain; generate the first map of bites in Spain to identify where and when there is a greater interaction between humans and mosquitoes; expand knowledge about the distribution of the Japanese mosquito in the Cantabrian coast; and detect the possible arrival of the yellow fever mosquito.

All the information provided by the public contributes to the scientific study and management of invasive mosquitoes. The data can be consulted and downloaded on the Mosquito Alert map once it has been validated and classified by the experts of the National Digital Entomology Network.

The app is called MOSQUITO ALERT and the website is www.mosquitoalert.com/, both of which are available in English.

Torrevieja Hospital Will Be Ready For The Summer

Following criticism that the Torrevieja health department lacks a summer plan, to deal with the increase in patients, the hospital has now presented its care coverage strategy.

The management confirmed that it will reinforce its staff to guarantee 100% care coverage in key services such as emergencies, primary care and hospitalisation, even reaching 60% coverage in External Consultations.

The hospital floors, they say, will remain open at full capacity. In addition, key nonassistance support services will also be maintained.

To make it possible, the Ministry of Health has allocated a budget for the 2023 Vacation Plan of e2,847,532. The department has the authorisation to cover the vacancies from June 1, so the replacement of staff has already begun.

The numbers will also increase in Primary Care. The care strategy for this summer is focused on promoting urgent care throughout the health authority with the 24-hour opening of the Continuous Care Points (PAC) in the coastal area. It should be noted that last year, to ease the pressure on the hospital, patients with non-life-threatening injuries were encouraged to go to a PAC in the first instance.

The emergencies at coastal health centres are reinforced with a doctor in the morning and another in the afternoon, in addition to having planned holiday coverage for medical personnel, as outlined in the vacation plan presented and approved by the Ministry. In addition, on weekends all PACs will be reinforced with an additional doctor with 12hour coverage and all health centres will remain open during regular hours. There will also be one more nurse in Guardamar del Segura and Pilar de la Horadada and 2 in La Loma, Torrevieja.

With regard to emergencies, the Ministry says that the necessary coverage of the service resources will be ensured to guarantee correct assistance. In the Emergency Service of the Torrevieja Hospital, in accordance with historical knowledge, it will be reinforced as necessary.