Your weekly news catch up in Mallorca

On Friday night last week there was an argument between two men in a bar in Arta. They were separated by the owner, and it seemed as if it was over. It wasn't. One of the two, a Colombian, went to his home and grabbed a knife. The other man, a 35-year-old Ecuadorean, Orlando Marcelo Suntasig, had seemingly left the bar and was on his way home. He never made it. He was stabbed four times. A passer-by found him lying in a street not far from the bar. He died at the scene.

They were strangers. That much the Colombian told the Guardia Civil after he had been arrested; there had never been any dealings between the two of them. In court in Manacor on Monday he exercised his right not to testify. He was remanded in custody without bail. As he was being taken from the courtroom, relatives of the dead man tried to attack him and had to be pulled away by security and the Guardia Civil.

The normally quiet town of Arta was therefore rocked by a murder. In Bendinat, meanwhile, there might just have been a shooting. There was an argument about opening a gate. This was between two motorcyclists and a property owner, a 70-year-old Portuguese man. He refused to open the gate and ended up chasing the pair and brandishing a pistol. The Guardia Civil arrested him.

Squatter violence and going quietly

In Palma's Pere Garau district, police were required in number to deal with an incident at a squat. The new owners of an apartment had shown up and were trying to get in and remove the squatters. A 14-year-old girl, one of a family of squatters, phoned her mother to explain what was happening. In no time, relatives appeared with knives and clubs. The police had to exert force - the use of batons - and arrested nine of these relatives.

Elsewhere in Palma the police didn't need to show their strength in ensuring the eviction of a squatter. He was a 21-year-old Spaniard who had moved into a three-million-euro property in upmarket Son Vida. This was a somewhat unusual case in that the villa didn't have an alarm system, and so the squatter had one installed. He also hired a cleaner - a woman who was cleaning for some neighbours.

A company owned the property. The squatter, who had a partner and a young child, had occupied it for around a year when the court procedure for eviction started last month. On Monday, the lawyer acting for the company went to the villa with the police. The eviction order had been served. He didn't wait for them to force him out, but he did apparently try to get back in on Monday night. A new alarm system had by then been installed, and he set it off. He will appear in court at some point, facing a fine for 'usurpation'.

Pyromania and human trafficking

A 50-year-old former German soldier, seemingly of no fixed abode, has been arrested by the National Police in connection with a series of deliberate fires in Esporles in August 2019. He was detained at Palma's Parc de ses Estacions, having failed to appear for his trial in October. There were three episodes, the most serious of which resulted in the burning of 7,120 square metres of land situated in the Tramuntana Mountains nature reserve.

He is now also under investigation for possible involvement with deliberate fires in Palma.

There was a development in the operation against human trafficking and sexual exploitation that had been carried out in Palma last week. The National Police has uncovered links which point to a major international network that is active in various European countries.

Investigations since fifteen arrests were made are ongoing, the police encountering some difficulties because of the secrecy of the Asian community involved in this case. The women who have been victims of this criminal organisation are said to be fearful for their lives and those of relatives, as are members of the organisation. Behind this organisation are Chinese mafias, and there is a reluctance to testify.

Migrant minors in a care home

The National Police assume responsibility for migrants on small boats, and they do so in coordination with other agencies, such as social services. This is especially the case where minors are concerned.

The Council of Mallorca's Institute of Social Affairs (IMAS) has reception centres for unaccompanied minors, but a recent influx of migrants caused a problem - the centres were full. A solution was found for seven minors. A wing at the La Bonanova care home for the elderly in Palma was not in use, and so the seven were housed there.

IMAS was at pains to point out that this arrangement didn't affect the normal operations at the home. Staff were not asked to take care of the seven. Personnel from organisations that IMAS works with were in charge of them.

Airport strike and charges

A more conventional means of arriving in Mallorca is obviously by plane. Operations at the airport, on which the island is so reliant, are always vulnerable to industrial action and to stoppages at particularly busy times. Spain's Constitution Day (December 6) is a Wednesday this year, which might suggest that there wouldn't be a long weekend break. But as ever, of course, Immaculate Conception is two days later. They are both national holidays, as the UGT union knows fully well. A strike of handling staff has been called for that week. This is in protest against the new tender for services, the union claiming that it has raised uncertainty about jobs.

The airports authority Aena is responsible for the tender, as it is also responsible for setting charges at airports. Over the summer, concerns were expressed about a new set of charges. These were for transport operators. Aena explained that buses and taxis would be exempt, meaning that the burden would most obviously fall on coaches contracted to transfer holidaymakers.

The travel agencies association in the Balearics was particularly vocal in stating its opposition to these charges. They would be passed on and make holiday travel more expensive. Aena estimated that the charges might mean an additional cost of 40 cents per traveller at the most. The Balearic government then got involved, and at a meeting between the minister for mobility, Marta Vidal, and the Aena CEO, Maurici Lucena, it was announced that these new charges will be delayed from 2024 until 2025.

Carbon footprint and water

One doesn't have to be an expert on such matters to conclude that a tourist's carbon footprint in terms of transport is likely to be higher than that of an average resident of Mallorca. A 2022 study of the environmental impact of tourism by the Mallorca Sustainability Observatory found that the per capita carbon footprint of the island's tourists was almost double that of residents - 11.2 tonnes of CO2 versus 5.8 tonnes. But the distribution of consumption for three elements - energy, transport and waste - was very similar. For tourists, 45% was transport; for residents this was 40%.

The observatory, which was established by Banca March, concluded that ever-increasing human pressure because of tourism allied to the current levels of carbon footprint will make meeting the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals very difficult.

The study made certain assumptions, one of which was that a tourist's average daily water consumption was 200 litres. Water, as we all well know, is a highly precious resource in Mallorca, which is a reason why frequent attention is turned to the condition of the two giant reservoirs in the Tramuntana Mountains - Cuber and Gorg Blau.

The reservoirs aren't by any means the only water source, but their capacities are obviously very important. They are mainly for Palma supplies but some of the water is diverted to other municipalities. At present, the combined capacity is 36%, very similar to what it was at this time a year ago. But the fear always is that there will be a dry winter and that the reservoirs don't recover.

It might be said that this has been a cause for possible concern ever since the reservoirs were created in the late 1970s. True enough, but there are now vastly more people - residents and tourists - than there were getting on for fifty years ago, while the summers have since got hotter, drier and longer, and snowfall in the mountains (despite the big dump of snow this year) is less regular than it once was.