More than a dozen bullet impacts are still visible this Monday at various points in the square of the El Rocío neighborhood in Isla Cristina (Huelva) where this Sunday hooded men riding motorcycles fired at several people. They killed two women, one 62 years old and another 39 who was pregnant, and a 16-year-old minor, completely unrelated to the settling of scores that the Guardia Civil is already investigating. The site of the bloody crime is less than a kilometer from the paradisiacal beaches and luxury hotels in the municipality of Isla Cristina, these days full of tourists.
Read more «Go back to your country»: a Ceuta journalist attacked during a protest over Elma Saiz’s visit
“I have the scare in my body. We thought they were firecrackers,” says a woman who this Sunday around 10:00 p.m. heard the shots a few meters from her house. In the square where the shooting took place there is a small bar and the neighbors gather in the shade, but none want to give their testimony to journalists or be recorded by cameras. “This is ruin, ruin. I don’t know anything,” says a young man with gold chains who quickly walks away from the place.
Sources from the investigation point out that the origin of the shooting is a “settling of scores” that would be related to family disputes over drug trafficking, although “no hypothesis” is ruled out. In fact, the two deceased women are mother and daughter; specifically, the mother and sister of ‘El Baba’, the alleged perpetrator of a shooting in September 2024 in the capital of Huelva in which there was a fatality, according to sources from the Guardia Civil.
Finally, doctors could not save the life of the eight-month-old baby the deceased woman was carrying in her womb. In addition, there is also a seriously injured person in the shooting, who is the nephew of ‘El Baba’.
Gestures of pain among the neighbors are repeated when talking about the deceased minor, named Hugo. “And that little boy? What fault did he have in all this? What a great pity!” says a neighbor who starts crying. A young woman who knew him from the neighborhood says he was very cheerful and a very good person.
“This neighborhood is quiet, nothing like this has ever happened here. We are not used to this,” laments a man, while next to him, some young people nod. Fear? “Of course we are afraid, fear and respect. This is very big,” says a young man.
This noon, there are no police in the area. At dawn, an important operation was deployed to collect evidence and analyze the crime scene. The alleged killers fled on a motorcycle which they later set on fire in a pine forest area near a campsite. They did this to “distract attention” and caused a fire outbreak that was extinguished by the quick intervention of users and owners of a nearby campsite, as well as the fire department, according to the mayor of Isla Cristina, Jenaro Orta.
The mayor described the scene witnessed in the neighborhood as “dantesque” and hard to forget for the witnesses. “It is a neighborhood of humble people, very quiet and peaceful. I only remember moments like this with an abyssal silence broken only by the crying and screams of the family,” Orta expressed, insisting on the “isolated and regrettable” nature of this incident in a fishing town and “eminently tourist” that is now in high season.
The injured
In addition to the three fatalities, there are two injured. One of them is the eldest son of the pregnant woman, 18 years old, who remains in very serious condition after being initially attended by the Local Police, who performed maneuvers to stop the bleeding. The 061 emergency service transferred him to a hospital.
The second injured is a 16-year-old minor who suffered a graze from a projectile outside the house but managed to get inside to take shelter. Both the mayor and the government subdelegate in Huelva, María José Rico, clarified that this minor “had no family ties” with those involved.
The Government Subdelegation has confirmed the preventive activation of special surveillance devices by the National Police in the neighborhoods of El Torrejón and Pérez Cubillas in Huelva city, due to possible family links, as well as near the funeral homes to prevent tension spikes while the Institute of Legal Medicine performs forensic autopsies. In parallel, a psychological care protocol has been coordinated with the Red Cross to assist relatives in the area.
