A couple of miles from the Caribbean island of Tobago, a narrow boat drifted onto the horizon. From a distance, it seemed no one was aboard. But as fishermen approached, they smelled death. Inside were the bodies of 14 Black men.
As local fishermen approached it, they made a grisly discovery: Everyone aboard it was dead.ADRIFTBELLE GARDEN, Tobago –Around 6:30 a.m. on May 28, 2021, a couple of miles from Belle Garden Beach on the Caribbean island of Tobago, a narrow white-and-blue boat drifted onto the horizon.
These “ghost boats” — and likely many others that have vanished — are in part an unintended result of years of efforts and billions of dollars spent by Europe to stop crossings on the Mediterranean Sea. That crackdown, along with other factors such as economic disruption from the pandemic pushed migrants to return to the far longer, more obscure and more dangerous Atlantic route to Europe from northwest Africa via the Canaries instead.
The lack of political will and global resources to identify dead and disappeared migrants mean such resolutions, even partial ones, are rare. Each year, thousands of families wonder about the fate of loved ones who left their homes for Europe.The Discovery Men in white overalls carefully removed 14 bodies, three skulls and other large bones one by one, placing the remains in 15 bags. Some victims were missing limbs or heads. The sun had mummified some parts, while the salt and water at the bottom of the boat had putrified others.
Yet months later, unable to identify the victims, police rebranded the criminal investigation into a “humanitarian” case. The remains were kept at the morgue of the Forensic Science Center in Trinidad.In 20 years as a forensic pathologist, Dr. Eslyn McDonald-Burris had never seen so many bodies arrive at the local mortuary in Tobago at once. Their apparent African descent reminded her of her enslaved ancestors.
Most shared similar traits — “that sort of tall, slender look, long thin face,” Burris says. Many wore several layers of clothing, common for seafaring migrants. A few wore dark green weather-proof jackets and pants, typically used both by fishermen in West Africa and by migrants seeking to avoid detection by port authorities.
It was mid-January 2021, and Alassane Sow, 30, wasn’t answering his phone, leaving his family in both Mali and France desperate. May searched the internet for any trace of him. Alassane’s grandparents had immigrated to France from the former colony decades ago, leaving their eldest daughter, Alassane’s mother, back in Mali. They had six more children in France, including May.
She reached out to a page on Facebook called “Protect Migrants not Borders,” used by families of missing migrants to exchange information. That was when May realized her nephew was one of thousands disappearing each year en route to Europe.Any tips she obtained was by word of mouth. There was no official information. She felt helpless.
A few months later, her sister shared a news report about a Mauritanian boat found in Tobago with dead bodies inside. Then an AP reporter contacted her asking about the same. Could her nephew be among those? Soulayman had gone missing a year earlier, along with dozens of other young men from nearby villages. They had taken off from Nouadhibou on a boat carrying 43 people to the Canary Islands on the night of Jan. 12, 2021. It was the same boat that Alassane Sow boarded.
Niang said he wasn’t aware of his son’s plans. He blamed local unemployment along with better opportunities abroad. Many in his generation had also moved to Europe and made good money for Mauritanian standards. Adama Sarré is a 46-year-old nurse and single mother. Her 25-year-old son, Cheikh Dioum, is among those who disappeared.
Like many on the boat, Sako, an asylum-seeker from Mali, had never seen the ocean. Four men with maritime experience, including a Senegalese “captain,” were in charge of reaching the Canaries. The voyage was to take four to five days. More days passed. No rescue came. A growing number of people wanted to cut the rope loose to drift faster. Sako thought they would be better off staying still, where the sea was still calm and they could see some lights at night. But Sako was defeated in a vote. The rope was snipped.
The bodies of 24 people were recovered and buried in the Canaries with case numbers instead of names. The remains of the other 36 were swallowed by the Atlantic.The number of people attempting the Atlantic crossing to the Canaries is falling again as Spain and the EU, with help from their African partners, try to close that migration route in a constant cat-and-mouse game.
There were the dirty soccer jerseys and shorts of Juventus, Paris St-Germain, Barcelona, Real Madrid and The Football Federation of Mauritania that Burris had noted in her autopsy reports. There were the dark green weatherproof coats and pants so many migrants wear during the crossing. There were the cell phones, so worn out that the devices fell apart at the slightest touch.
May Sow, the aunt in France, stared at the photos on her phone for days and stayed up late at night. One photo looked familiar: a black striped button-down shirt.
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