Drastic measure. The Army has decided to remove from the company “immediately” the captain responsible for the training exercises that were carried out yesterday at the Cerro Muriano base in Córdoba in which two soldiers lost their lives. The decision has been adopted “without prejudice to the outcome of the judicial investigation that is being carried out.”
Both deceased, a corporal and a soldier from the La Reina 2 Infantry Regiment, were carrying out buoyancy maneuvers in the Guadanuño reservoir of the Guzmán el Bueno X Brigade military base when they disappeared around 9:00 a.m. in the morning. Their bodies were rescued from the water by the search operation at 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. The team was made up of agents from the Civil Guard, health workers, firefighters and had the intervention of the Special Group of Underwater Activities of Andalusia and the Benemérita Judicial Police.
The soldiers would have drowned, according to what has emerged from the autopsy report that was performed yesterday. We will have to wait for the investigation into this event, assumed by the Court of Instruction number 4 of Córdoba, acting as guard and the one in charge of removing the bodies, to determine if the death of these recruits is due to recklessness by part of the company captain, removed from his duties preventively; whether all required security measures had been adopted or whether any fault had been incurred.
According to El País, the soldiers who participated with the deceased in the aquatic activities soon asked for help and shouted that they were drowning when they were in the water before dawn. Most of them managed to reach land by their own means, two of them needed to be evacuated to the Reina Sofía Hospital to receive medical attention due to symptoms of hypothermia (the water temperature did not exceed 4 degrees Celsius) and two others were given for missing.
The same media echoes the testimonies of those present, some of whom point out that the sad accident took place due to the breakage of a rope to which the soldiers were clinging (called the “lifeline”), others point to that this resource did not exist, some focus on the fact that no rescue team had been prepared to act in the event of an accident and others denounce that there were no ambulances in the area. All of these options will be studied by investigators in their efforts to explain what happened and clarify responsibilities.
Once the responsible authorities confirmed the sad news, messages of pain and condolences for the victims’ families began to flow from all over the country. The Army expressed its regret for the death of these two soldiers through its social networks. “We join his family and colleagues in these tragic moments. R.I.P.,” they expressed, a message that was also joined by the Military Emergency Unit (UME).
For their part, the town councils of El Viso del Alcor, where soldier Carlos León Rico, 24, was from, and Villafranca de Córdoba, where Corporal Miguel Ángel Jiménez Andújar, 34, was from, have decreed a day of mourning the death of both soldiers yesterday.
“With pain and sadness” due to the tragic event, the Córdoba town announced late yesterday that it was suspending all activities organized for this Friday. “In solidarity with the family, friends and relatives of the young soldier,” a day of mourning was also declared in the Sevillian municipality where León was well known, as well as in the Triana neighborhood, where his father ran a bar.
The president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juanma Moreno, also wanted to share his “enormous sadness” over the tragedy that occurred in Córdoba. “Andalusia joins the deep pain of its families, colleagues and loved ones. A big hug and all our love,” she wrote on her X profile (former Twitter).
“It has been a hard and tragic blow that has left us all dismayed,” commented Pedro Fernández, Government delegate in Andalusia after learning the sad news that came from the Cerro Muriano military base, in the municipality of Obejo.
For its part, Defense shared some data on the careers of both victims, one of whom, soldier Carlos León, has only been in the military for half a year. Specifically, it was last May 8 when he joined the Army, and was assigned to the La Reina 2 Infantry Regiment.
A longer career was that of Corporal Miguel Ángel Jiménez, who had been in the military since 2011, although he had been assigned to this regiment in 2019, upon promotion to corporal. The man from Córdoba had participated in missions in Latvia and Lebanon and was in possession of two crosses of military merit with a white badge, Defense has noted.
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