Almost two years after a boat containing 14 bodies drifted to the coast of Tobago, one of the bodies was conclusively identified as that of a Mauritanian man. He was buried last Friday.
Fishermen in Belle Garden saw the boat on May 28, 2021 and called the police and coast guard who helped tow the vessel to shore.
On board, the police found the bodies of 14 badly decomposed bodies.
They were taken to the Scarborough General Hospital, where autopsies were done in June. The cause of death was inconclusive owing to the state of the bodies. Sources said they were "little more than skeletons."
The bodies were later taken to the Forensic Science Centre, St James, for storage in August 2021.
A probe led by ACP William Nurse of the Tobago Division revealed the boat was from Mauritania, in northwest Africa, and the bodies were likely those of migrants.
DNA testing was done on the bodies at the centre and the results compared to samples given by relatives of missing people from Mauritania.
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