A drug boat threw the Moroccans it was transporting into an area of dangerous waters, and the bodies of four of them have been recovered
The quick action of people who have seen this afternoon how Eight were thrown into the sea from a drug boat. immigrants in an area of dangerous currentslike the Sancti Petri pipe in Chiclana de la Frontera (Cádiz), has prevented several of them from drowning.
“We had never seen such an aberration,” Javier González, manager of the company ‘Naútica Gurri’, told EFE, who in a small zodiac He has rescued seven of themsome already semi-conscious and face down in the sea.
These eight Moroccans were traveling in the narcolancha next to another 27 who, moments before, had been thrown from the boat into the sea on the nearby Camposoto beach, in San Fernando. Four of them were found dead. After forcing this group to jump off the semi-rigid boat, the crew of the boat, with three powerful engines, continued sailing at full speed towards the Sancti Petri channel. There, an area of strong currents, they threatened the eight immigrants who were left on the boat and who had not wanted to jump into the water.
“One has told us that They put a gun on him and told him that either he would jump or they would shoot him.“, said Javier González. Another told a Red Cross team that they threatened him with a knife.
The manager of the company, dedicated to offering windsurfing classes, was in the area this afternoon by chance, because he had arranged to meet a team to record a video in the area. But it will be an afternoon that he, he says, will not forget. “It has been a very hard, scary day, but I am proud to have saved lives,” he says.
He explains that, suddenly around one in the afternoon, he saw the drug boat appear in the water at full speed. “I couldn’t believe it, I didn’t have hashish, I was carrying people who were thrown into the water.”
Knowing the danger of the waters, and that many immigrants who arrive by boat do not know how to swim, or in winter they wear several pants and jackets that make it difficult for them to move in the water, he immediately took a small zodiac that he had on the shore and went to his rescue. “It took me a minute to get to where they were and there were already three face down in the sea, they did not drown because we took them out at that moment,” he says.
In two batches he managed to take seven of them ashore in his boat.. An eighth was rescued by a boy who jumped into the water to help him, risking his life given the currents in the area, as he explains.
Already in the sand, with other people, they tried to bring them blankets and revive them, while they notified 112, which alerted the Civil Guard, National Police, Red Cross and Maritime Rescue. “I left them on the ground and left, because there were other people attending to them and I was in shock,” says Javier González. “Those who could talk thanked us, they were all young, between 15 and 20 years old. You can’t imagine their faces, they were terrified. They said they paid 5,000 euros for this trip.” Three of them had to be admitted to the Puerto Real hospital.
The Civil Guard has launched a search for the drug boat, which quickly fled the scene. According to witnesses, it was manned by four people, two Spaniards – a man and a woman – and two Moroccans.
According to data from the Government Subdelegation in Cádiz, of the 31 surviving immigrants who were traveling on the drug boat, 25 are adults, and six are minors. The bodies of the four deceased have been taken to the Forensic Anatomical Center of Cádiz, to determine their age, identity and the causes of their death.