Fatal fire on Ibiza: Police believe the fire in sa Joveria could be arson

Similarly, the Policía Nacional, which is in charge of this case, had planned to question a witness yesterday who claimed to have seen some people escaping from the area of the accident just after the fire started. Thus, for the moment, and while awaiting further investigation, arson has not been ruled out, according to sources close to the investigation. The fire was reported at 21.55 hours and immediately patrols from the Policía Municipal, the fire brigade, the Policía Nacional and several ambulances were sent to the scene, as it was not known how many people could be in the dwellings. Two municipal officers were the first to attend to the victim, who was still conscious and told them that he had gone to look for him. The man suffered third degree burns to 90% of his body and, despite the efforts of the mobile ICU medical staff, he died at 22.40 pm, as detailed by the City Council of Ibiza. No other inhabitant of the destroyed shacks was at the scene of the incident.

“Initially, the police mistook the identity of the deceased for that of a parking lot attendant”

Initial confusion

At first, the Town Hall reported that the deceased could be a 46 year old parking lot attendant with mental problems, but hours later corrected the information, since the Scientific Police had confirmed that it was someone else. In fact, a woman who lives in a caravan 200 meters from the fire, Claudia, yesterday morning showed her surprise that the police had asked her about the parking attendant who was mistaken for the deceased. “Everyone knows him and it is very strange that he would have come here, since he does not live in this area,” she told this newspaper. According to her, in these shacks, hidden by wild olive trees and uncontrolled vegetation, lived two young Moroccans and two Romanians. Veronica is a cat lover who goes to sa Joveria up to three times a week to feed the wild cats, so she regularly met the inhabitants of that settlement. “They are two cousins in their early twenties and a Romanian in his thirties. The last time I saw them was last week,” she explained. As she detailed, these people have been living here for a year. “Before that, there was a family and a man who had been hospitalised with leg problems, but they went back to Romania.

“Sa Joveria suffered up to three fires in July 2018, burning three caravans and a shack”

Another person in the same area, that moments before a young Moroccan arrived, who said that he was one of those living in the shacks, to see if he could find any of his belongings. He reportedly stated that he and his companion were not in the camp at the time of the fire. In other shantytowns of sa Joveria there have been fires before. The most striking case occurred in July 2018, with up to three fires in one week. The most serious one ravaged three caravans of a group of street vendors and a hut shared by four homeless people. For the full article, please visit Diario de Ibiza website here.