BELÉM, Brazil — The bodies of nine immigrants found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil’s Amazon region were buried Thursday with a solemn ceremony in Belem, capital of Pará state.
Fishermen off the coast of Pará found the boat adrift on April 13, carrying the already decomposing bodies. Brazilian officials later said that documents found on the ship indicated that the victims were immigrants from Mali and Mauritania, and that the ship had departed from the latter country after January 17.
The deceased were buried in a secular ceremony organized by several groups involved in their recovery, including the UN Refugee Agency, the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, as well as police, navy and defense agencies. Brazilian civilians.
A tropical rain fell as their coffins were lowered into tombs dug into the earth and those present watched in respectful silence.
Their approximately 12 meter (39 ft) boat carried 25 raincoats and 27 mobile phones, suggesting that the original number of passengers was significantly higher. This also implies that among the deceased there may be people of other nationalities, local officials said.
It was a rustic blue and white fiberglass boat that, when found, had no engine, rudder or rudder. Its canoe shape is similar to that of the Mauritanian fishing boats often used by migrants fleeing West Africa and seeking to enter the European Union through Spain’s Canary Islands.
An Associated Press investigation published last year revealed that at least seven vessels from northwest Africa were found in the Caribbean and Brazil in 2021. They all carried corpses, like the boat found in Pará.
So far, none of the victims have been identified. Authorities said the manner of their burial would allow for later exhumations in case the families of the deceased were located and wished to transport the bodies back to their countries of origin.
Brazil’s criminology institute in the capital Brasilia is carrying out forensic examinations of the remains, and the Federal Police says it is in contact with Interpol and foreign organizations to provide final results.
This year, the number of people attempting to cross from the northwest coast of Africa into the EU has seen a 500% increase, with the majority leaving Mauritania, according to Spain’s Interior Ministry. But it is a dangerous route with strong Atlantic winds, and ships that veer off course can drift for months and be swept to distant destinations, often causing migrants to die of dehydration and malnutrition.
The reasons that push people to resort to these boats are varied and intertwined: lack of jobs and prospects for a better life, impacts of climate change, growing insecurity and political instability, among others.
According to the Spanish Ministry, more than 14,000 African immigrants have arrived in the Canary Islands so far this year. In February, the EU and Mauritania signed a €210 million ($225 million) deal aimed at combating human trafficking and deterring migrant boats.
With hundreds more migrants from West Africa reported missing, families in Mauritania have created a commission to search for their loved ones and are anxiously awaiting information from Brazil.
Bachirou Saw of Mauritania buried one of his nephews earlier this year who had died during the arduous crossing of the Atlantic shortly after arriving on the Spanish island of El Hierro. He is still searching for another nephew, Kadija Saw, who left in January and is nowhere to be found. He follows the news from Brazil closely.
Saw, who also has Spanish citizenship and emigrated to Europe by plane 30 years ago when it was easier to get a visa, said he has been trying to convince young people not to emigrate by boat. He created a WhatsApp group to warn migrants about the dangers of the ocean journey and share information with desperate relatives, and has counted at least 1,500 missing in the past six months in Mauritania, Mali and Senegal. While the majority of migrants setting sail for Europe are men, there are also an increasing number of women boarding the ships.
“I have their IDs on my phone,” said Saw, who receives messages every day from families searching for their loved ones. Along with others, they have organized trips to Morocco to look inside prisons and morgues. Moroccan authorities often intercept migrants trying to reach Spain and detain them before deporting them. But Saw’s nephew wasn’t there either. He also visited the Canary Islands to check out the morgues there.
Saw’s sister is devastated. “Every day she buys credit to listen to our audios, she lives for this, she doesn’t eat, she is thin, she only thinks about her son,” Saw said. And she is not alone.
“It’s very sad, half of the towns dance because their children have arrived (to Spain),” he said, “but the other half cries because they have lost their children in the ocean.”
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Carneiro reported from Rio de Janeiro. Associated Press writer Renata Brito contributed from New York.