Coordinated raids across Huelva

More than 80 officers from the Spanish Civil Guard carried out five simultaneous raids in Huelva on Tuesday, 8 September 2026, arresting three men aged between 24 and 36. The operation was coordinated by the Judicial Police of the Huelva Command alongside the Ayamonte team, deploying personnel from the Special Intervention Unit (UEI), the Rapid Action Group (GAR), canine search units, and a surveillance helicopter. Investigators entered five residential properties across the provincial capital following judicial authorization, searching for evidence linked to the fatal shooting 23 days earlier. During the searches, officers seized one firearm, a taser, several bulletproof vests, roughly 20 mobile phones, and nearly 30,000 euros in cash. The three detainees remain in Civil Guard custody facing charges of membership in a criminal organization and four counts of murder, with prosecutors counting an eight-month-old unborn fetus as a fourth victim.

The August drive-by attack

The raid concluded the first phase of the investigation into the attack that occurred on Sunday, 16 August 2026, in a public square within the El Rocío neighbourhood of Isla Cristina. Two hooded attackers arrived on a motorcycle and opened fire into the street with a Kalashnikov assault rifle and a handgun. The gunfire killed a 62-year-old woman and her 39-year-old daughter, who was eight months pregnant, alongside a 16-year-old male bystander with no ties to either family. After the shooting, the attackers fled the scene on the motorcycle and set the vehicle on fire to destroy forensic traces. On 19 August 2026, Civil Guard investigators located the two abandoned firearms, transferring the assault rifle and handgun to the ballistics service for comparative analysis.

Multi-year clan feud

Police investigators attribute the violence to a long-running dispute between two families involved in drug trafficking: the Moriña clan and the Salazar clan. The two families had previously been united when Manuel Salazar, known as 'El Baba', married Saray Moriña. The alliance collapsed in September 2024 when Salazar shot Saray's brother, Ramón Moriña, in the chest in the El Torrejón district of Huelva. Retaliatory attacks forced the Salazar family to abandon El Torrejón, while Salazar spent months hiding from authorities before his capture and imprisonment. In 2025, members of the Moriña clan killed Salazar's father, and the August 2026 shooting in Isla Cristina targeted Salazar's mother and pregnant sister just weeks before the second anniversary of Ramón Moriña's death.

Legal proceedings and local response

The investigation remains under judicial secrecy ordered by Court of First Instance No. 3 in Ayamonte, with authorities not ruling out further arrests. The mayor of Isla Cristina, Jenaro Orta, noted that the town council has focused on providing municipal support to the family of the 16-year-old victim. Orta addressed the arrests following weeks of police discretion.

“All those involved in this regrettable event pay for it and be where they have to be, which is in prison.”

Salazar is scheduled to appear before the Provincial Court of Huelva on 16 October 2026 for the 2024 homicide of Ramón Moriña, while the three suspects detained in the Tuesday raids await formal appearance before the investigating magistrate in Ayamonte.