The Investigative Court of Valverde (El Hierro) has opened an investigation into the circumstances of the shipwreck of the canoe that sank on September 28 when it was being rescued by Salvamento Marítimo just six kilometers from the island, resulting in 63 deaths. , of which only nine bodies have been recovered. Through a request issued by the Transparency Portal of the Government of Spain, Salvamento Marítimo has informed EFE that the Civil Guard is carrying out an investigation into that accident in the functions of the Judicial Police, so it cannot reveal more details than what what happened that night.
Sources from the Civil Guard in El Hierro have corroborated that the investigations are carried out by order of the Valverde Investigating Judge, who, ex officio, has asked to know all the possible circumstances of how the canoe sank when it was already receiving help. of a Rescue ship, the Guardamar Concepción Arenal.
The information provided after the shipwreck by Salvamento indicates that the canoe capsized when several of its occupants crowded on the same side during the rescue and unbalanced it, which caused them to fall into the sea in the middle of the night (it was around 1:00 a.m.). early morning) and in a strong wind (20 knots, 37 kilometers per hour).
Testimonies from six survivors, to which EFE has had access, indicate that the boat broke up in the middle of the rescue operation, when several of the migrants had already crossed to the deck of the Guardamar. Two of the survivors have detailed that, after abarloando (standing next to) the rescue ship, one of the ropes that held the canoe to the Guardamar Concepcion Arenal came loose or broke. This caused one end of the canoe to separate momentarily, until the wind and waves pushed it against the metal hull of the Guardamar, causing it to split in two. Sixty-three men from Mali, Senegal, Mauritania, Guinea and Gambia, several of them minors, lost their lives, of which only nine bodies have been recovered and were buried in the following 48 hours in La Frontera and Valverde. The rest have not appeared, despite the fact that the search continued for several days.
