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It was a typical night in the busy holiday resort of San Antonio in Ibiza. Lads were touting tickets for the biggest party in town and women in bikinis were gyrating to dance music in front of the resort's strip of beach bars.
But just after 1am, two teenagers from Northern Ireland, recent arrivals on the Spanish island that attracts 500,000 Britons each summer, stumbled out of a nightclub in search of a snack and were mown down by gunfire.
As a bullet ripped through student Niall Hamilton's cheek, lodging itself in his jaw, his friend Gareth Richardson dropped to the ground with a bullet wound to the chest.
The two were not the intended targets. They had unwittingly wandered into the crossfire of what police believe is an escalating turf war between rival British drug dealers battling to control the lucrative cocaine and ecstasy market on the island.
Mr Hamilton, 18, from Holywood, near Belfast, is still recovering in hospital after the shooting late last month. Doctors said the bullet would certainly have killed him had it been an inch higher.
"I came on holiday looking for a laugh and a good time," Mr Hamilton said. "The last thing I expected was to get shot. "We just nipped out of the club for a burger and walked around a corner, then heard what we thought were fireworks. All of a sudden I was on the ground and I could hear people around me screaming that I'd been hit."
The gunfight, in which up to 30 shots were fired, followed a high-speed chase between two cars through the streets of San Antonio. A British occupant of one of the cars has been arrested and is in hospital under armed guard with a bullet in his spine.
Police say growing numbers of British drug dealers are appearing on the island, sent out for the summer by UK gang bosses to supply class A drugs to holidaymakers flocking to join Ibiza's dance-till-dawn party scene.
Ecstasy, which can be bought for just a few pounds, has long been tolerated on the island.
But police fear that the recent shooting is a symptom of a growing feud that is threatening to destroy the relative peacefulness of the holiday island.
Since the incident two weeks ago they have conducted a series of raids, seizing specialist equipment, drugs and weapons from homes in the hills around San Antonio and have arrested 13 alleged drug dealers, many of them British nationals.
They have also called for help from their British counterparts to mount a joint operation to tackle the problem. Ibiza already has 28 Britons serving prison sentences for drug trafficking and related crimes.
But just after 1am, two teenagers from Northern Ireland, recent arrivals on the Spanish island that attracts 500,000 Britons each summer, stumbled out of a nightclub in search of a snack and were mown down by gunfire.
As a bullet ripped through student Niall Hamilton's cheek, lodging itself in his jaw, his friend Gareth Richardson dropped to the ground with a bullet wound to the chest.
The two were not the intended targets. They had unwittingly wandered into the crossfire of what police believe is an escalating turf war between rival British drug dealers battling to control the lucrative cocaine and ecstasy market on the island.
Mr Hamilton, 18, from Holywood, near Belfast, is still recovering in hospital after the shooting late last month. Doctors said the bullet would certainly have killed him had it been an inch higher.
"I came on holiday looking for a laugh and a good time," Mr Hamilton said. "The last thing I expected was to get shot. "We just nipped out of the club for a burger and walked around a corner, then heard what we thought were fireworks. All of a sudden I was on the ground and I could hear people around me screaming that I'd been hit."
The gunfight, in which up to 30 shots were fired, followed a high-speed chase between two cars through the streets of San Antonio. A British occupant of one of the cars has been arrested and is in hospital under armed guard with a bullet in his spine.
Police say growing numbers of British drug dealers are appearing on the island, sent out for the summer by UK gang bosses to supply class A drugs to holidaymakers flocking to join Ibiza's dance-till-dawn party scene.
Ecstasy, which can be bought for just a few pounds, has long been tolerated on the island.
But police fear that the recent shooting is a symptom of a growing feud that is threatening to destroy the relative peacefulness of the holiday island.
Since the incident two weeks ago they have conducted a series of raids, seizing specialist equipment, drugs and weapons from homes in the hills around San Antonio and have arrested 13 alleged drug dealers, many of them British nationals.
They have also called for help from their British counterparts to mount a joint operation to tackle the problem. Ibiza already has 28 Britons serving prison sentences for drug trafficking and related crimes.
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