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The lower half of a human body found on El Saler beach in Valencia on Wednesday June 10 is now believed to be linked to a migrant boat tragedy that unfolded off the coast of Cartagena back in April, according to the Guardia Civil.

 

The remains were discovered at around 5pm following a call to the 112 emergency line. The body was in an advanced state of decomposition, which will complicate the work of forensic experts from the Institute of Legal Medicine in Valencia and investigators from the Guardia Civil's Criminalistics Service.

 

Even so, the clothing found on the body, jeans and socks, may offer clues as to the victim's origin, and investigators believe he was likely a North African man.

 

The main line of inquiry centres on a boat that was found adrift off Cartagena on April 20. The vessel was first spotted by the French military ship OPV Loire at around 3pm, with three bodies and two survivors on board. A Maritime Rescue patrol boat later transferred everyone to the Santa Lucía dock in Cartagena, arriving at around 6pm to recover the bodies.

 

According to the two survivors, the boat had set off from Mostaganem in Algeria carrying 18 people, bound for the Balearic Islands. They told investigators that their fellow passengers died one by one from dehydration and exhaustion during the journey, and that at least four men jumped into the sea after believing they had spotted the Balearic coast.

 

The root of the disaster appears to have been mechanical. The boat had set out with a less powerful engine than originally planned and when it failed at sea, the vessel was left drifting and unable to navigate.

 

A crossing that should normally take less than 24 hours between Mostaganem and the Murcia coast instead stretched on for almost 20 days, with the boat going undetected by passing maritime traffic until the French military vessel finally spotted it.

 

According to the survivors' accounts, which are still subject to formal legal proceedings, several passengers died during those weeks at sea and their bodies were thrown overboard. The four men who jumped into the water near the Balearic coast never made it to land.

 

Investigators believe the remains found at El Saler could belong to one of those four men, with ocean currents in the area potentially having carried the body to the Valencian shoreline.

 

Image: Comunitat Valenciana