Thousands stranded on Ibiza after bomb threat

Thousands of passengers were stranded on Ibiza last night after police closed the holiday island's airport following a bomb threat.

Officers evacuated 5,000 people and all flights were cancelled at 1pm yesterday after a newspaper in mainland Spain received a phone call warning them of a suspect package in the terminal.

Reports from airport officials that police had blown up the package in a controlled explosion were later denied by the Spanish Interior Ministry.

No one has claimed responsibility for the suspected bomb, but the warning phone call was received by the Basque newspaper Gara, which has been used before as a conduit for bomb warnings by the Basque separatist group ETA.

Hundreds of British holiday-makers were believed to be among those waiting for the terminal to reopen. The tour operator Thomas Cook said it had 67 passengers at the airport, who should have been on flights to Luton and Doncaster, awaiting new departure times.

Gatwick Airport had six flights due to leave for Ibiza yesterday afternoon and was trying to find alternative airports.

The Association of British Travel Agents said the incident would cause delays and advised people due to travel to Ibiza to contact their tour operators or airlines.

Ibiza airport handled almost 4.5 million passengers last year, a 7 per cent increase on 2005, and the Spanish airport authority, AENA, said some 300 arrivals and departures had been scheduled yesterday.

ETA called off a 15-month ceasefire on 5 June, claiming the Spanish government had refused to make concessions in peace negotiations.

The government had earlier called off talks after an ETA bomb left in a car park at Madrid's Barajas airport killed two people in December, although ETA maintained that it had not intended to kill anyone and the ceasefire remained in force.

The authorities had feared a new attack was imminent, especially after 21 June when the Civil Guard found a car in Ayamonte, near Spain's border with Portugal, packed with explosives, detonators, timers and a bomb-making manual in the Basque language.

ETA, whose name Euskadi Ta Askatasuna means Basque Homeland and Freedom, has killed more than 800 people since it began its campaign for independence for ancient Basque territories in northern Spain and southern France in 1968.

ETA started life as a student resistance group opposed to Franco's oppressive military dictatorship, under which the Basque language was banned, the region's culture suppressed and its intellectuals imprisoned and tortured.

Since Spain became a democracy after Franco's death in 1975, the Basque country has gained a high degree of autonomy and polls show that few inhabitants want total separation from Spain.