'Hero' migrant saves wheelchair-bound man from burning building in Spain

A Senegalese migrant may receive residency in Spain after he rescued a wheelchair-bound man from a burning apartment building in the city of Denia in south-eastern Spain.

Street vendor Gorgui Lamine Sow rushed over to a crowd watching black smoke pouring out of a second floor window after hearing nearby screams.

"They told me there was a man trapped inside the apartment," the 20-year-old told Reuters. "I didn't think about it. I just dropped my things and started climbing."

He entered the burning apartment after scaling the balcony and hoisted the resident, identified as 39-year-old Alex Caudeli Webster, over his shoulders and carried him down a ladder.

"Gorgui literally saved his life," a neighbour said. "If Gorgui had not pulled Alex to safety when he did then Alex would not have survived."

Sow left the scene as emergency officials neared, worrying that the police would confiscate his goods.

"And if they take them from me, we're not eating tomorrow," the 20-year-old, who has a seven-month-old daughter and lives with his girlfriend, said.

He only found out days later that neighbours were hailing him as a hero. "I'm just happy that the man is fine," he said.

Local authorities have urged central government to give him residency, with a source with the government delegation in Valencia confirming they are studying his case.

As an undocumented migrant, Sow has been unable to find work besides selling goods on the street since arriving in Spain in 2017.

"There are people who, when I try to show them stuff, they don't look at me, they won't talk to me," he told Reuters. "It's really difficult to do this job."

The dramatic rescue drew comparisons with Mamoudou Gassama,  a young undocumented Malian migrant who in 2018 scaled a four-story Paris building in under one minute to save a four-year-old boy hanging off a balcony.

He later received French citizenship.

Some criticised the gesture as a PR stunt, arguing that it did little to address the plight of tens of thousands of migrants and refugees in Europe.