A woman working at the Endesa offices in Sant Antoni has described the concern that led her to contact the Guardia Civil after an unattended suitcase was spotted outside her workplace on Tuesday, 10 November.

Hanna was attending a meeting when a colleague alerted her to a suitcase left beside a tree on the pavement opposite the offices. With news emerging that morning of a fatal explosion in Oviedo involving an explosive device, she decided not to ignore the discovery.

“After what happened in Oviedo, I wasn't comfortable leaving it, so I called the Guardia Civil straight away,” she told Periódico de Ibiza y Formentera.

Her call prompted a security operation involving the Guardia Civil, its specialist detection dog unit and TEDAX explosive-device specialists, while the surrounding area in Sant Antoni was secured as a precaution.

Security Cameras Help Identify the Person Who Left the Suitcase

According to Hanna, officers initially asked whether she had seen anyone leave the luggage, but she had not witnessed the moment it was abandoned.

After the immediate danger had been ruled out, employees at the Endesa premises reviewed their security-camera footage to establish what had happened.

The recordings showed a man from the local area walking along the street with the suitcase before leaving it beside the tree and continuing on his way.

Hanna said the Guardia Civil managed to locate the man and take him away for questioning. According to her account, he was not arrested.

The identification of the person who had left the suitcase did not immediately resolve the situation, however. Officers still needed to establish what the luggage contained.

Suitcase Found Completely Empty

The decisive moment came when the specialists opened the suitcase and confirmed that it was empty.

Hanna described the discovery as a considerable relief for everyone who had been following the operation.

She explained that the suitcase had been left unattended for approximately half an hour, with nobody coming forward to claim it. Although an item of luggage might ordinarily be assumed to have been forgotten by a traveller, the circumstances that morning made the discovery particularly unsettling.

She acknowledged that the news from Oviedo had influenced how she and her colleagues interpreted the situation.

Without the explosion reported earlier that day, she said, she might not have reacted in the same way.

A Local Man Known to Workers at the Premises

Hanna also explained that the man who had left the suitcase was known to some of the employees.

According to her account, he had approached one of her colleagues earlier and asked for a little money, which the colleague gave him without paying particular attention to the suitcase he was carrying.

The man later returned to the area. Hanna said her colleague, who knew him reasonably well, spoke to him and encouraged him to remain calm and go home to rest.

The incident therefore ended without any explosive device being found or anyone being reported injured in connection with the suitcase.

The Oviedo Explosion Behind the Concern

The discovery in Sant Antoni took place against the background of a serious incident in Oviedo, Asturias, on Tuesday morning.

An explosive device inside a backpack detonated in the Villafría neighbourhood, killing a National Police officer from the canine unit and his police dog. A TEDAX officer was also seriously injured.

The incident prompted heightened concern when reports of the explosion reached the public, including in Ibiza.

For Hanna and her colleagues, the discovery of the suitcase brought an understandably worrying situation to their workplace. The subsequent inspection confirmed that the luggage was empty, and the police operation ended without an explosive threat being identified.

The episode highlights why reporting unattended or suspicious objects to the emergency services can be important, particularly when their contents and ownership cannot be established.