Dozens of North African migrants jump off boat on Costa del Sol beach

This is the astonishing moment around 40 North African migrants jump off a speedboat on a Costa del Sol beach in front of holidaymakers relaxing on the sand.

Shocked tourists sat up on their sun loungers as the small vessel neared the shoreline and the men disembarked before running or walking past them.

Their dark and dishevelled clothes set them apart instantly from the holidaymakers topping up their tans in the mid-70 degree Fahrenheit heat in their bikinis and swimming trunks.

The surreal scenes played out yesterday afternoon just before 5pm at El Chucho beach in the popular resort of Nerja east of Malaga.

Police confirmed later in the afternoon after mounting an operation to track them down that they had managed to intercept 33 of the migrants. They are understood to have included six minors.

Some had managed to walk more than nearly two miles to another beach in the neighbouring municipality of Torrox when they were located.

The search for the handful of other migrants was continuing today.

The boat they reached Spain on had left Morocco's Rif region, home to Mediterranean beaches and stunning mountain villages, yesterday morning.

Well-placed sources said they believed 36 males had been on board.

The adults who were intercepted were taken to a police station in Nerja before being transferred to a Temporary Foreign Attention Centre in Malaga Port known as a CATE while efforts begin to send them back to their countries of origin.

Three weeks ago around 20 migrants in a similar speedboat managed to make it ashore at another Nerja beach called El Playazo.

Yesterday's mass arrival was a near-repeat of dramatic scenes in August at a packed beach in Majorca.

Then around 20 mostly young men stepped over stunned tourists as they walked between their towels after jumping off a small boat at Cala Gran in Santanyi in the south-east of the holiday island.

They were all Algerians who had made the perilous 170-mile journey from their homeland.

Four migrant boats had already reached the Balearic Islands earlier the same day on August 13, three of them the paradise destination of Formentera off Ibiza.

Although it was widely estimated around 40 migrants had disembarked from the boat that reached Nerja yesterday, the region's hard-right party VOX claimed the number had been more than 100 and said they had arrived on two boats.

It said in a rabble-rousing tweet on its official account on X late yesterday, criticising Spain's right-wing Popular Party as well as the governing left-wing PSOE party: 'Two boats full of illegal immigrants (more than 100) have reached Nerja today.

'Look at how calmly they're invading our country. They know they won't be expelled.

'This is what the what the PP and PSOE have provoked with their policies.'