An early morning stroll along an Ibiza beach has turned into a nightmare for at least one tourist, after he discovered a severed human foot washed up on the shore. The gruesome find was made at Playa d’en Bossa early on Friday, 10 October 2025, by an unidentified man thought by locals to be a visitor to the area.
Being associated with tragedy can adversely affect holiday destinations. Praia da Luz, in Portugal’s Algarve region, is one high-profile example, with tourists staying away for years following the disappearance of three-year-old British child, Madeleine McCann. However, a growing fascination for true crime and cold case mysteries also means that such incidents can attract unwanted attention and visitors.
Playa d’en Bossa is a major resort south of Ibiza Town that welcomes large numbers of package holidaymakers, often from the United Kingdom, Germany, and Italy. Police, who arrived by 8:00 am, dispersed onlookers, crowds of whom are reported to have gathered, some from a nearby 4* hotel. The beach and nearby streets were sealed pending investigation. Officers were forced to use sticks to prevent the body part from being washed back out to sea, witnesses said. Forensic experts were on the scene within an hour.
The incident follows the discovery just three days earlier of a body drifting around three kilometres into the bay of Talamanca, reported originally by Periódico de Ibiza y Formentera. The heavily decomposed body was recovered by maritime rescue services, but there has been no indication from authorities at the time of writing that the two events are linked.
It is not unusual for victims of drowning or bodies disposed of in water to suffer abrasions to extremities, as their position in the water may be dragged against obstacles such as rocks. That process, in addition to animal predation, can cause postmortem external defects that can be difficult to distinguish from other injuries or violent trauma.
Talamanca, just five kilometres from Playa d’en Bossa, is close to ferry routes between Ibiza, Barcelona, Formentera, Palma de Mallorca, and Valencia. Commentators have pointed out that Ibiza, the Balearics, Catalonia, and Valencia have been struck by torrential rains, strong winds, and flooding, as the arrival of Storm Alice prompted red weather warnings from Spain’s national weather agency, Aemet. Motorways have been flooded, as well as Ibiza airport. It is not known whether Storm Alice is connected to the fatalities reported here, but the conditions could have disturbed and washed up the remains.
Scientists have associated the increasing frequency and intensity of extreme weather events with climate change, as fossil fuel emissions drive up air temperatures and cause periods of prolonged marine heatwaves. Warmer air can hold more humidity, meaning that when storms come, they bring with them greater volumes of water, more rain, flooding and erosion. The Mediterranean has been shown by scientists to be one of the fastest-warming regions on the planet.
