Mijas will send the last 19 tonnes of food donated to Dana victims this week

Mijas still has 53 tonnes of donated material stored in municipal facilities intended for victims of the floods that hit Valencia on 29 October. The people of Mijas, like those of many other municipalities, showed their support and wanted to help the thousands of families affected with food, cleaning utensils, hygiene and other materials that were considered necessary at the time. In total, according to the data provided by the town hall, around 100 tonnes of products of all kinds were collected.

Of these, approximately half are still in Mijas, which has provoked criticism from the opposition, and surprise from the government team, which claims to have followed the guidelines set by the Spanish federation of municipalities (Femp) to the letter.

According to the council, on 4 November they received notice from Femp asking them to slow down the deliveries in view of the massive response from citizens all over Spain and the impossibility of managing everything at the same time. In this email, they continued, they were told that all the material could be delivered at a later date, once previous deliveries had been organised.

"The civil protection service has been in constant contact with Femp technicians and the provincial authority of Valencia to coordinate the process. The last communication we were given was that probably after the December bank holiday they would resume," sources from the town hall said. The council also said that the last 19 tonnes of food in storage will be sent to Bancosol this week. It will be Bancosol that will decide which route the food will follow, giving priority to those areas where there are still needs due to the Dana.

Once these 19 tonnes have been sent, there will still be another 34 tonnes in storage, including a wide range of products, but not food. The local government has set next week as the likely date for distribution to begin. They recognise that the clothes are the most complicated to distribute and that it will be the last thing to go out, as Valencia has asked them not to send any more clothes. Therefore the idea of the town hall is to work with local associations to give them the clothes so that they in turn can distribute them to whoever they consider necessary.

All these donations are stored in two municipal warehouses. One part is in the old fire brigade building and the other in the cleaning and waste collection building. The PSOE in Mijas have strongly criticised this situation, both for the delay in the delivery of donations and for the storage conditions, which they considered "not very hygienic". The council rejected this last point and assured that the material has always been controlled and stored in good conditions.