Six victims of wildfire in Spain identified, including one Belgian

© picture alliance / Anadolu | Pablo Miranzo

The Spanish government has been able to identify six of the thirteen victims who died in the wildfires in Los Gallardos.

They include three men and three women, five of whom are foreign nationals and one a Spaniard, all of legal age. Among those identified is a married couple consisting of a Spanish man and a British woman. In addition, another man and another woman from the United Kingdom, a woman from France, and a man from Belgium have also been identified.

On Friday, Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska had already reported that the victims were of “various nationalities.”

The victims were found in the village of Bédar, inside the cars they had used in an attempt to escape the inferno. The identification process began using DNA samples.

Among the victims who have not yet been identified are believed to be two more Belgians.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez traveled to the affected area in Almería on Monday and spoke there with the president of Andalusia, the mayors of the affected municipalities, and members of the Guardia Civil, the national police, and the fire department.

Sánchez praised the “cooperation, unity, and coordination in the measures taken to combat the fire” and assured that the government has deployed all necessary resources to extinguish the fire and determine its causes, and that it will also commit to rebuilding the damage, according to El País.

He also praised everyone “who is part of the civil protection system,” who “put their lives on the line” to “protect those of their fellow citizens.”

Sánchez also expressed his concern about the consequences of climate change: “A third of the area burned in Europe last year was here, in Spain. This is linked to a deterioration resulting from the climate crisis that Spain is facing.”

Picture: © picture alliance / Anadolu | Pablo Miranzo