WATCH: Nurse in Spain breaks down in tears after being forced to leave Ibiza due to surging rent on the island – where police and lifeguards have admitted sleeping in their CARS after being ‘priced out’

A NURSE on Ibiza broke down in tears as she explained to Spanish television reporters how she was going to have to leave the Balearic Island due to the surging rent prices on the island due to rising demand from tourists and a limited supply of accommodation. 

“My mother lives here, my friends live here… But what can I do?” asked Sonia, during an interview on television network Telecinco. “Not wanting to leave but having to leave…” she said tearfully. 

The nurse is just one of many people living in the Balearic Islands who have found themselves priced out of the local market. And that’s despite her €1,800 a month salary, which is paid to her 14 times a year. 

Another nurse who spoke to the channel explained that she was learning Dutch so that she could go and live and work in the Netherlands, after having had to move house five times in recent months. 

Read more: Guardia Civil officers forced to sleep in cars

In January of this year it emerged that police and lifeguards have been sleeping in their cars in Ibiza, given that they cannot afford a home. 

According to the newspaper El Diario de Ibiza, the average rental price on the island rose to €1,967 in February and has not moved since. 

This, according to Spanish daily La Vanguardia, is particularly worrying for residents given that the minimum wage in Ibiza is €1,134.

Earlier this year, a teacher in Ibiza made headlines after it emerged that she was taking 44 flights a month to work in Ibiza, because it was cheaper for her to live on the neighbouring Balearic Island of Palma and ‘commute’ by air. 

There is a growing protest movement in many parts of Spain against the country’s current tourism model, which locals say is ‘destructive’. 

Just this past weekend, some 10,000 people took to the streets of Mallorca to demand a change to the sector, under the slogan ‘Mallorca isn’t for sale’. 

Last month as many as 57,000 people came onto the streets of the Canary Islands to also call for change. 

Protestors are calling for a moratorium on tourist lets and guarantees for standards of living.