Inside secret Ibiza shanty town riddled with snakes where superclub workers live in squalor with no water or electricity

The Sun

11-07-2025

AS dawn breaks and the thump of Ibiza's wild nightlife begins to subside, the ramshackle shanty town is starting to awake.
Folk emerge from mosquito- infested tarpaulin shacks as tipsy clubbers leave Pacha superclub — where VIP tickets can cost almost £1,700 — just a five-minute drive away.
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The makeshift encampment, plagued with snakes and without electricity, running water or toilets, resembles the fetid 'Jungle' refugee camp in Dunkirk.
Yet, waiting for their shifts to begin at the Ibiza camp, I met a sous chef, a kitchen porter, a ­security guard at the port, a hotel cleaner and a dish washer.
For the super-rich and celebrities, who have turned the White Isle into Europe's premier party destination, are being catered for by shanty- town dwellers as Spain suffers a housing crisis.
Nestled beneath the high-end ­restaurants of Ibiza Old Town, ­workers from the sweltering, dust-blown camp are helping support an industry worth billions to the ­Spanish economy.
Outside his shack of wooden ­pallets, restaurant worker Yaslem Hamdi, 34, originally from Western Sahara, told me: 'We live here with the snakes and insects because we can't afford to rent an apartment.'
Yaslem tells me he makes around £1,100 a month while a tiny room nearby costs about £700 to rent.
Pitched amid scrubland near the Can Misses Hospital, the hospitality workers here shower by pouring ­bottles of water over themselves in cubicles made from discarded wood.
Some use a patch of bushes as an outside loo.
Sun-drenched party isle
It is a miserable existence for staff propping up Spain's tourism industry, which is projected to be worth over £220billion to its economy this year — almost 16 per cent of its GDP.
As temperatures soar towards 35C, yachts bob in azure waters as those aboard sip ice-cooled beer and champagne just a short drive from the camps.
Pot washer Yaslem is among ­thousands of working homeless ­people on the sun-drenched party island. In other nearby impromptu camps
I met a nurse, a hairdresser and chef, all reduced to living in tents, cars, caravans and camper vans.
Furious Spanish protesters — from Barcelona to Mallorca and Tenerife to Ibiza — have blamed over-tourism for inflaming its housing crisis.
Yet, its own left-wing government has helped fuel the shortfall by encouraging immigration while not building enough new homes for the incomers.
New arrivals mean 250,000 households are added in Spain each year — but fewer than 90,000 new homes are built, according to the Economist magazine. The Bank of Spain has estimated that there is a shortage of 500,000 properties.
The shanty town is a world away from the sun-kissed Balearic island's famous nightclubs, pristine sandy beaches and luxury villas.
Long fashionable for its pretty ­villages and cuisine, one local newspaper says Ibiza's high-end prices now put it 'on a par with St Tropez'.
Home to 160,000 people, Ibiza received 3.6million tourists last year, with Brits the largest group from overseas. Each tourist spends an average of just over £160 a day.
Some we spoke to believe a slice of the profits and taxes reaped from tourism should be spent on workers' accommodation.
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Shanty town dweller Yehdih Salec Abdalila, 25, who works six days a week as a bartender, told me: 'We're working all day, so why can't we come home to a normal house like everyone else? The employers or government should give us a little bedroom with somewhere to wash.'
On the golden sands of San Antonio close to party hotspots Linekers and Ibiza Rocks, British holidaymakers hit out at the anti-tourist protesters.
Mum-of-two Kaylie Brooker, 34, said she and her friend Tara ­Madigan, 27, had each spent £1,000 for a three-day break on the island.
'The Spanish should appreciate that Brits want to come to their country and spend so much money,' said Kaylie, from Brighton.
'The government here should use some of that cash to build houses for the homeless workers. Tourists shouldn't get the blame.'
Activists have blamed over-tourism for driving up rent prices which many workers cannot afford.
Spain has been convulsed by protesters who say holidaymakers also clog roads and overload sewerage pipelines.
Last month demonstrators in ­Barcelona squirted giant water pistols at tourists.
Protesters in Palma, Mallorca, held up placards reading, 'Tourists go home' while others marched through Ibiza Town.
I've lived here for a year. I work — we're not down and outs — but we can't afford the rents.
Caravan dweller Jose
In another makeshift settlement in Ibiza, Portuguese chef Tiago Martins, 29, told me: 'How can you blame the ­tourists? They pay our wages.'
The hospitality worker lives in a van alongside dozens of others — including families with children — in tents, motorhomes, cars and ­caravans on a fly-blown and sweltering patch of land near Ikea in Ibiza Town.
None can afford the rents on the island.
Residents here have been served with a notice by local government saying they must move or face fines of up to £25,500.
Speaking through a fly net draped in the doorway of his cramped van, Tiago added: 'Then where would we sleep? And who would do the tourism jobs?'
It's not only workers in the ­tourism sector who are homeless.
In a dustbowl carpark near Can Misses Hospital I met trainee nurse Maria, 34, returning to her caravan after her shift.
With the silhouette of the cobbled Old Town behind her, Maria — from Cordoba on the mainland — told me: 'In the summer it's impossible to afford a room in Ibiza. Medical workers should be provided with accommodation.'
In the midday heat, night workers slump in vans with the doors open hoping for a breeze in the stultifying temperatures while pet dogs yap at strangers.
Caravan dweller Jose, 30, originally from Argentina, said: 'I've lived here for a year. I work — we're not down and outs — but we can't afford the rents.'
Strolling along the beachfront at San Antonio, tourist dad-of-two Nick Skelton, 60, a part-time ­surveyor from Hull, said of the shanty towns: 'It's wrong. They should look after their workers. You can't have them do a day's work then go home to a bloody shack.'
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Enjoying a paddle in the waves, Vikki Malek, 27, from Dundee, who runs a beauty business, added: 'The rents here are overpriced. I don't think businesses care about the people in the shanty towns.'
Her friend, businesswoman Tamara Bentley, 31, from Aberdeen, told me: 'If you want tourists to come you need workers.
'They help bring in the profits so they should be looked after.'
While much of the ire for Spain's property shortfall has fallen on tourists, socialist PM Pedro ­Sanchez's policies have only fanned the flames of the housing crisis.
Bucking the trend across Europe, Sanchez's tottering administration — attempting to weather a corruption scandal — has encouraged immigration since taking office in 2018.
Vulnerable families
In 2022 alone, close to three ­quarters of a million people arrived to start a new life in the nation.
With house building failing to match the rising population, it's hardly surprising that rents have risen by nearly 80 per cent in the past decade.
Sanchez's left-wingers have also been accused of siding with ­squatters over landlords, which has left homeowners wary of ­renting out their properties.
Laws mean vulnerable families cannot be evicted unless they have alternative housing to go to. Last year there were 16,000 reports of squatting in Spain, with heavies often employed in forced evictions.
Activists insist that tourism has made the housing emergency worse.
Ibiza campaigners point out that flights to the island have risen from just over 25,000 in 2000 to a record 66,000 scheduled for this year.
Almost a fifth of the planes are arriving from the UK.
Expat Xaquelina Ana Perry, spokeswoman for Prou Eivissa (Enough Ibiza), which campaigns against over-tourism, describes ­conditions in the shanty towns as 'awful'.
'It's unbelievable that on Ibiza, the Magic Island, people have to live like that,' said Xaquelina, who has lived here for 40 years.
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Originally from Wolverhampton, Xaquelina, in her 60s, says landlords are renting out their apartments illegally to tourists because they can charge a higher price.
'We want that stopped because the resources of the island can't cope,' she said. 'You need essential services and frontline workers.'
The mum stresses her group's campaign isn't against tourism but promotes a 'change in the type of tourism'. She added: 'Back in the 1980s you had family tourism, you had ­couples. Now people come for clubs and drugs and it's attracting the wrong type of people.
'People who break into houses and steal. And there's fights on the streets between drug dealers. It's awful — we never had that before.'
Ibiza's council has taken steps to address the housing crisis and overcrowding on the island.
It launched 'an unprecedented fight' against illegal tourist lettings, and now allows just two cruise ships to dock at once.
Meanwhile, back in the shanty town, weary workers prepare for another day helping keep Spain's tourist industry afloat.
Sous chef Mohamed, 17, told me: 'We have no water, no electricity, no toilets and no hope.'
A damning indictment from a grafter in an industry that provides rivers of gold for Spain.