The National Police have arrested in AlmerÃa three alleged skippers of a boat that ended up adrift and in which two Moroccan immigrants died due to the “hardness of the journey”, after which their bodies were thrown into the sea.
In addition, Maritime Rescue officers have rescued a total of 35 people in the last few hours, all men of North African origin, in three toy-type inflatable boats that were sailing towards the coasts of Cádiz, AlmerÃa and Granada. One of the rescued tried to reach the coast by swimming wearing only a neoprene suit and a life jacket.
Regarding the event in which two men died, who were thrown overboard by the skippers, the National Police has reported in a note that the so-called ‘Patera 81’ sailed from Algeria to AlmerÃa with 20 people on board, although only 18 of them reached “Spanish soil” after being rescued by Maritime Rescue.
He has underlined the “rigors” of the Mediterranean crossing and that at one point the boat began to leak and the engine stopped, which caused its passengers to “panic”, and some witnesses pointed out that that moment coincided with the death of one of the occupants, who was allegedly thrown into the water by the bosses to “get rid of his weight and avoid criminal liability.”
The boat was adrift for a day and a half without drinking water, food, life jackets or any other safety element, and several of its “desperate” occupants drank sea water, which “could cause the death” of the second traveler, who was also thrown overboard.
After being rescued by Maritime Rescue, the immigrants were transferred to the port of AlmerÃa, where they received initial medical assistance and it was determined that six of the passengers suffered severe chemical burns due to the mixture of fuel, seawater and sun, and one of them He needed several days of hospitalization to recover from the injuries suffered.
Once recovered, the agents of the Central Unit of Immigration Networks and Documentary Falsifications (UCRIF) interviewed the occupants of the boat, who “had been instructed” to declare that those responsible for the boat managed to flee, but a “subtle comment “In an interview, he raised the suspicions of the investigators, who delved into the statements of all those rescued until they reconstructed what happened.
The statements of the witnesses were reinforced by the reports of the disappearance of the relatives of the deceased, for which the three alleged patrons of the boat, aged 33, 20 and 19 and Algerian nationality, were arrested for crimes against the rights of foreign citizens and reckless homicide.
After this, the arrested were placed at the disposal of the Investigating Court number 1 of AlmerÃa, which has ordered their entry into provisional prison.
