Holiday makers give aid

Tourists sunning themselves in the Canary Islands came to the rescue of 88 immigrants from Africa whose canoe-shaped fishing boat grounded on a beach in Tenerife. They were given first aid by holidaymakers and locals who took some of the most severely dehydrated to hospitals near the town of Granadilla in their cars.

"It was totally spontaneous," a local police officer, Javier Melián, told El País newspaper yesterday. "Every immigrant must have had four or five people looking after them. The beach was full of tourists."

Foreign sunbathers, especially Germans, were among those who helped while Red Cross units and the local police made their way to the beach on the southern coast of Tenerife.

The tourists helped the immigrants wade through the last few metres of water on to the beach, gave them water to drink, dry clothes and held towels over them to keep them in the shade.

Several children were among those who had to be looked after until the Red Cross arrived.

"We handed out surgical gloves to people in case the immigrants had illnesses, but they didn't really care about that," Mr Melián said. "I was especially impressed by the young people, who gave them their things and helped, even though they could not understand a word they said."

The sight of desperate developing world immigrants turning up on the beaches where Europeans routinely visit to sunbathe is becoming increasingly common in the Canary Islands. Spain says some 11,000 people, mainly sub-Saharan Africans, have arrived in the Canary Islands so far this year.