MADRID: Firefighters tamed a wildfire yesterday that had threatened villages north of the upmarket beach resort of Marbella in Spain’s southern Costa del Sol, allowing about 4,000 people who had been evacuated to return to their homes and hotels.
Emergency officials said one man was killed by the fire but his age and nationality could not be confirmed. He had originally been identified as a British citizen.
More than 400 firefighters and members of the armed forces fought the flames overnight, using eight helicopters and aeroplanes to help drench the flames when they approached towns and villages north of the coast.
Officials said it was the worst fire in memory in the coast province of Malaga, part of the Andalucia region.
Places threatened by the flames included Ojen, a village of white buildings perched on a mountainside where most of the evacuees lived.
Officials reopened the highway between Marbella and Ojen yesterday morning and were allowing evacuees to return to their homes, a spokeswoman for the Andalucia regional government said.
The fire broke out on Thursday evening in the hills above the tourist mecca of Marbella and raced south and west through hilly, tinder-dry countryside, fanned by strong winds and high temperatures.
Every year millions of tourists visit the Costa del Sol, famed for its beaches and nightlife. Hundreds of thousands of expatriates from northern Europe live on the coastal belt.
Unusually dry weather in Spain has resulted in wildfires burning thousands of hectares of land this summer, and temperatures have hit record highs in some regions.
Thousands of people were evacuated because of wildfires earlier this month in the Canary Islands, and four people died in fires in the border area between France and Catalonia, in northeast Spain, in July.
![]()
Wildfire under control near Spain’s Marbella
Wildfire under control near Spain’s Marbella
Zimbabwe opposition says constitutional ‘coup’ under way
- The accusations came after the cabinet approved amendments that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his term in office
HARARE: Leading Zimbabwe opposition figures accused the government Wednesday of a constitutional “coup” after the cabinet approved amendments that would allow President Emmerson Mnangagwa to extend his term in office.
Sweeping changes to the constitution accepted by the cabinet Tuesday include extending the presidential term to seven years and follow a decision by the ruling Zanu-PF that Mnangagwa should stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2028.
The amendments will be presented to parliament, which is weighted in favor of the Zanu-PF, but the opposition insists they also need to be put to a national referendum.
“The process that is currently happening in Zimbabwe is a coup by the incumbent to extend his term of office against the will of the people,” opposition politician and fierce government critic Job Sikhala told AFP.
“We have got an incumbent who wants to railroad himself, using the tyrannical and dictatorial tendencies of his rule, into another two years to 2030,” he said.
He said his National Democratic Working Group had asked the African Union to intervene.
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for 37 years.
He was elected to a five-year term in 2018 and again in 2023 but has been accused of allowing rampant corruption to the benefit of the Zanu-PF — which has been in power since independence in 1980 — while eroding democratic rights.
Sikhala, a former lawmaker with the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, was arrested in South Africa last year for alleged possession of explosives. He says they were planted in his vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt.
“What is unfolding in Zimbabwe is not constitutional reform. It is a constitutional coup,” Jameson Timba, a CCC leader who has established a group called the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), said in a statement on X.
The president and his party are using “formal processes” such as cabinet decisions “to entrench power without the free and direct consent of the people,” he said.
Sweeping changes to the constitution accepted by the cabinet Tuesday include extending the presidential term to seven years and follow a decision by the ruling Zanu-PF that Mnangagwa should stay in office beyond the end of his second term in 2028.
The amendments will be presented to parliament, which is weighted in favor of the Zanu-PF, but the opposition insists they also need to be put to a national referendum.
“The process that is currently happening in Zimbabwe is a coup by the incumbent to extend his term of office against the will of the people,” opposition politician and fierce government critic Job Sikhala told AFP.
“We have got an incumbent who wants to railroad himself, using the tyrannical and dictatorial tendencies of his rule, into another two years to 2030,” he said.
He said his National Democratic Working Group had asked the African Union to intervene.
Mnangagwa came to power in 2017 in a military-backed coup that ousted Robert Mugabe, who ruled the southern African country for 37 years.
He was elected to a five-year term in 2018 and again in 2023 but has been accused of allowing rampant corruption to the benefit of the Zanu-PF — which has been in power since independence in 1980 — while eroding democratic rights.
Sikhala, a former lawmaker with the Citizens Coalition for Change (CCC) party, was arrested in South Africa last year for alleged possession of explosives. He says they were planted in his vehicle in an apparent assassination attempt.
“What is unfolding in Zimbabwe is not constitutional reform. It is a constitutional coup,” Jameson Timba, a CCC leader who has established a group called the Defend the Constitution Platform (DCP), said in a statement on X.
The president and his party are using “formal processes” such as cabinet decisions “to entrench power without the free and direct consent of the people,” he said.
Latest updates
Recommended
© 2026 SAUDI RESEARCH & PUBLISHING COMPANY, All Rights Reserved And subject to Terms of Use Agreement.