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ARCHIVED - Sea slowly gives up its dead; seven corpses now recovered from Mazarrón migrant boat
Two bodies were recovered on Saturday when the boat capsized with 14 people on board
Slowly, slowly, the sea is giving up its dead, as the bodies of the 11 illegal migrants who drowned on Saturday when their patera capsized close to the Mazarrón coastline, are washed up.
Although an intensive search was carried out on the nearby coastline to the Percheles beach where the vessel sank throughout the day on Sunday, it took until Tuesday for the first two corpses to appear.
One of the bodies was found floating off the La Carolina beach, in Águilas, near to the Culmarex fish farm and was found early in the morning by employees of the company who secured the body until the members of the territorial team of the Judicial Police arrived. The second body was found and recovered off the coast of Mazarrón by a fishing trawler from the fleet operating in Mazarrón port.
Two further corpses were located off the Almería coastline on Wednesday, one of them a minor (two children aged 9 and 11 were amongst the dead, as was their mother), which were found off the shores of Garrucha and Mojácar in Almería province, according to the 112 services in Almería.
112 services in Almería confirmed that the first corpse, that of an adult male, had been found floating about a mile out from the beach between Vera and Garrucha at lunchtime and was brought in to shore by marine rescue services.
The second was found at 19.40 close to the shore of the Paseo Marítimo in Garrucha, just metres from the shore and was the body of one of the two children who drowned during the accident.
On Thursday morning another body, this time of a woman, was found alongside the beach in Vera, Almería, lying on the shore near to avenida Ciudad de Alicante just after 10:00 in the morning.
Only three people survived the accident, thanks to the heroic efforts of a local policeman and a nearby surfer who swam out to where the boat had capsized 200 metres from the shore and helped three people to reach safety.
It transpired that one of those who survived and was able to swim, was the person who had captained the boat and brought the irregular migrants across from Algeria.
He has been arrested and is being held in prison, without bail, while police investigate his involvement and try to identify the other individuals working within the network of organised crime which brings these immigrants across.
It’s known that the increase in migrations from Algeria within the last eighteen months is due to an increased presence of organised criminal gangs who recruit pilots (normally fishermen who understand the sea, currents, conditions etc and can handle the boats) to take the boats across to Spain, in return for significant payment of over 2,000 euros a trip.
Passengers typically pay 2,500 euros for their passage, and the network includes recruiters in Algeria who find those willing to make the crossing and receivers in Spain, who help the migrants once they have reached the Spanish mainland, to either continue their journey to other areas of Europe or the UK, or find illegal work within Spain.
This pilot will be charged with belonging to a criminal gang, of offences against the rights of foreign nationals and illegally transporting irregular migrants to Spain.
During the latter part of last week nearly 200 irregular migrants either reached, or were rescued off the shores of the Murcian coastline (the final count on Wednesday and Thursday was 142 and 43 arrived on Friday), a scenario also played out in neighbouring Alicante and Almería, where several boatloads of irregular migrants were detected in each province, the good weather and full moon encouraging several hundred to make the trip across from the African coastline between Wednesday and Friday.
On Saturday the wind changed and although the sun continued to shine, conditions became more dangerous. Normally this type of stronger wind would deter the migrants from making the dangerous crossing, but for some reason this small boat containing fourteen people, decided to try and cross late on Saturday afternoon, aiming to arrive at sundown when there is less chance of being detected.
It is highly unusual to take such a risk when better conditions usually return after waiting for a few days, but perhaps the success of so many boats successfully reaching Spain in the preceding days overcame caution and the boat set out.
It reached the waters off the Mazarrón coastline at around 19:00 on Saturday evening, where it capsized.
It’s not normal for those on board to have lifejackets and most of those who cross to Spain, can´t swim.
It’s not uncommon for boats to capsize and the International Organisation for Migration reports that 58 people have died attempting to enter Spain by sea this year.
Last year the figure was 330, although most of the deaths occur on the more dangerous route into the Canary Islands which is the more popular route for Sub-saharans attempting to enter Spain illegally.
So far this year, 4,377 irregular migrants have been detected illegally entering Spain by sea, a slight increase on the 4,033 of the same period last year.Last year 41,861 irregular migrants entered Spain by sea, 29 per cent more than in 2019.
2,580 of these migrants have entered Spain through the Canary Islands, which last year witnessed a massive surge in detections due to the closure of the migrant transit centres because of Covid (last year the figure was 756 per cent up on the 2019 total ).
These are now open again.
Image: Marine Rescue Service (archive).
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