A teenage asylum seeker from Guinea is being celebrated as a local hero in Malaga after rescuing a woman stranded during severe flooding caused by torrential rains on Thursday, November 14.

A video that has now gone viral shows Mansour Konte, a teenage boy, dressed in a basketball jersey and shorts wading through knee-high flood waters to get to a woman under a blue umbrella standing in the middle of the road.  

The woman appears to be standing still even while the floodwater continues to rise. The two speak for a moment before Mansour is seen picking her up and carrying her across to the entrance of her partner's building.

The video, which was filmed by a neighbor who had been recording the havoc brought on by the storm, has caught the attention of Francisco de la Torre, the town mayor, who called Mansour the town hero. A business owner in northern Spain has also reportedly offered Mansour a job in their company.

Despite the praise, Mansour modestly downplayed his actions, telling local media, “I saw a woman who couldn’t move, so I went to help her because it was very dangerous.”

The Hero of Malaga is a young male migrant

Mansour reportedly arrived in the Canary Islands in October last year on board a boat. The teen who is seeking international protection is living in accommodation in Malaga provided for asylum seekers by Comisión Española de Ayuda al Refugiado (CEAR).

Local media reports showed Mansour reunited with Cristina, the woman he had rescued from the rising floodwater, standing outside the petrol station where Cristina had been stranded after the flood waters had subsided.

Speaking to local media Cristina explained that despite a red alert for heavy rain, she had gone to work at her hair salon, leaving just as the downpour intensified. She was paralyzed with fear as floodwaters kept rising, unable to see where she was stepping.

"I had no control. From then on, I was unable to take a step," she said.

In a matter of eight hours, a year's worth of rain had been dumped on Valencia. Just two weeks later, Malaga in Spain's Andalucia region experienced a similar weather disaster.

Spotting her distress, Mansour acted quickly, carrying her through the dangerous waters to safety at her partner’s family home. After ensuring her safety, he returned to assist others, helping police clear debris and secure floating objects in the area.

Mansour won a standing ovation from the neighborhood and has already been dubbed the 'hero' of the town on social media.

Spain: Nexus of migration and the climate crisis 

Recent developments have put Spain at the intersection of the climate crisis and migration. Catastrophic flash floods that killed at least 217 people and displaced thousands more in Valencia, Spain at the end of October were reportedly caused by a destructive weather system in which cold and warm air meet and produce powerful rain clouds. The extreme weather occurrence is thought to be growing more frequent due to climate change. The phenomenon is known locally as DANA, a Spanish acronym for high-altitude isolated depression, was reported to be the deadliest in modern Spanish history and the most catastrophic flood-related event in Europe since 1967. 

Two weeks after DANA battered Valencia, nearly a month’s worth of rainfall inundated the city of Malaga, in Spain’s Andalusia region in just an hour.

Meanwhile, an increasing number of people have been reported to be arriving irregularly in Spain. Like Mansour, they are mostly using small boats to cross the Atlantic Ocean to get a foothold into European territory via the Canary Islands, Spain to apply for international protection.

The United Nations Migration agency, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported more than 13,000 people arriving irregularly in the Canary Islands from January to March this year, representing a 502 percent increase compared to the number of arrivals during the same period of the previous year.

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