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»Needle Spiking«: Needle attacks have now also been reported in Spain

2022-08-03T20:53:52.469Z


More and more often, strangers attack young women with needles or syringes while partying. Cases of "needle spiking" were recently reported in France and Germany. Now also in Spain.


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Nightclub in Ibiza (archive image): "This raises social concerns"

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David Ramos/ Getty Images

Dozens of young women have been injured with needles or injections while partying in Spain in recent weeks.

The attacks mainly occur at music festivals, bars and dance clubs.

There have been at least 50 ads since the beginning of July, the newspaper El Mundo reported on Wednesday, citing authorities.

The number of unreported cases is likely to be much higher because many of the women who were attacked did not report them, partly because they only noticed the spades and the consequences – such as nausea and dizziness – later, it was said.

There have been no arrests so far.

Numerous regions are affected – including the Balearic Islands with the holiday island of Mallorca, which is popular with Germans.

The Guardia Civil police unit announced there on Wednesday that they were investigating six cases.

Four would have happened in Mallorca and two in Ibiza.

The needle attacks are puzzles.

The bitten people complain about health problems such as nausea, dizziness and headaches.

However, the obvious assumption that the perpetrators drug their victims in order to rob them or to sexually assault them has not been confirmed in any of the reported cases, the media reported, citing the police.

Toxins have so far not been found in the blood samples in almost all cases.

So far nothing is known about the motives of the perpetrators.

Attacks with needles or injections at festivals and in clubs initially occurred in Great Britain.

From the beginning of the summer, hundreds of cases were also reported in France.

Some needle attacks (needle spiking) have also been recorded in Germany.

How great the danger really is is unclear.

Against this background, the otherwise rather secretive Berlin techno club Berghain now appeals to clubgoers on its website to watch out for one another.

In Spain, meanwhile, it is a completely new phenomenon, the media wrote, citing police spokesmen.

The first reports after "pinchazos," as the attacks are called in Spain, appeared on the fringes of the Pamplona bull hunt in July.

Meanwhile, Catalonia and the Basque Country have been hit the hardest.

In these two, but also in other regions, the police began investigations.

"This raises social concerns, especially given the possibility of sexual violence against women, although this has not been confirmed at the moment," said Catalan Minister for Equality Tània Verge.

The young Mallorquin Lourdes Sosa admitted to the newspaper "Última Hora" that the fear was spreading.

"People almost prefer to stay at home with friends."

Like the horror clowns once did

Needle spiking is reminiscent of the phenomenon of horror clowns in autumn 2016 – back then, masked scary clowns frightened passers-by.

At the time, criminal psychologists identified a "sadistic motivation" behind the action.

sol/dpa

Source: spiegel

All life articles on 2022-08-03

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