(16 Apr 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bragança, Brazil – 15 April 2024
1. Various of bulldozer holding the boat found adrift, police pointing a flashlight at the boat ++NIGHT SHOT++
2. Group of federal police officers ++NIGHT SHOT++
3. Residents watching the boat from a distance near the river
4. Firefighters wearing masks working on the boat
5. Federal police official near the boat recovery site
6. Recovered boat resting on the shore with plastic cover
STORYLINE:
Brazilian police investigating the grim discovery of a boat full of corpses say the dead were likely African migrants from Mali and Mauritania.
Fishermen off Brazil’s northern coastal state of Pará found the boat adrift Saturday in the Atlantic ocean.
Brazil’s Federal police said in a statement late Monday it had recovered nine dead in total.
Police added that other nationalities could be among the deceased.
The roughly 12-meter (39-foot) -long white and blue canoe-shaped boat found in Brazil shares the same characteristics of Mauritanian fishing pirogues frequently used by West African migrants and refugees fleeing to Spain’s Canary Islands, suggesting Brazil was probably not their destination.
The Atlantic route from West Africa to the European Union territory is one of the most dangerous in the world.
Boats that miss their destination can be swept away by Atlantic trade winds and currents from east to west, drifting for months.
Migrants aboard often die of dehydration and malnutrition.
Others have also been known jump into the ocean out desperation.
Brazilian federal police say they are still working to identify the bodies and the cause of death, a difficult task given the advanced state of decomposition they were found in.
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