WELL THREAT: Eight unsealed wells reported to police in Velez-Malaga

CONCERNED locals in Velez-Malaga have reported to police eight alleged unsealed wells.

The sudden spike in concern comes after the case of Julen, the toddler who fell down and died in a seventy-two-metre borehole in Totalan last month.

Police said they have begun sealing the wells reported by residents and have reported them to the council’s department of urbanism and environment.  The majority of complaints have allegedly been made by goatherds who have found them in the middle of fields.

The Axarquia Group of Nature Studies, GENA-Ecologists in Action, has blamed the number of allegedly illegal wells on lack of administrative control and personnel to monitor the execution of the same . The group’s president, Rafael Yus, claimed all irrigated land above the La Viñuela reservoir is suspected of having, “potentially illegal” boreholes.