High and dry on the beach

BARCELONA’S municipal police provided 174 “post-robbery kits” to beachgoers whose belongings were stolen while they were swimming.

A pair of flip-flops, t-shirt, trousers and a metro ticket solved the immediate problems of victims who were visiting one of the 10 beaches along the city’s five kilometres of shoreline.

The situation was still more complicated for those who were using the San Sebastian or Mar Bella nudist beaches, police said.

The number of beach thefts increases each year, they revealed, as in 2016 they had to provide 20 of the kits between May and September, compared with 174 between May and mid-August this year.

This summer the Barceloneta police station in the city’s coastal district dealt with 853 reported thefts, 17 complaints of robbery with violence and 27 complaints that cars were broken into.