I was quite distressed and frankly angry to read some of the comments on social media about the possibility of the Spanish rescue ship Open Arms coming to Palma with 100 immigrants aboard who had been rescued off the coast of Italy as they attempted to cross from Africa.
These are people who needed our help but some of the comments on social media were outrageous which showed a very closed mindset; send them home, arrest the people traffickers, were just some of the comments I read.
As we are a family newspaper I will not report some of the more offensive and horrible ones. I also found it rather amazing that some of these comments came from foreigners...non-Spaniards who are had settled on Majorca.
They should remember that we are also immigrants who came to the island in search of a new life and thankfully were welcomed with open-arms by the resident population. Immigration has become a problem in Europe and attitudes have changed but that doesn´t mean that we should turn our backs on those in need, especially when they are coming to our island home.
Whatever your views on immigration it is up to the politicians to do something about it and our role is to help where we can because we are members of a tolerant and forward- thinking society.
It is madness, if not crazy, to think that by closing our borders to immigrants all problems will go away. Until the attitudes of some start to change then we have a problem within.