Some African refugees whose bodies were found aboard a drifting boat have been buried in Brazil.
TRT WORLD reports that the nine migrants whose bodies were already decomposing were found on an African boat off the northern coast of Brazil’s Amazon region on April 13.
Officials said documents found in the vessel showed the victims were migrants from Mali and Mauritania. The documents also indicated that the boat had departed Mauritania after January 17.
Brazilian police later said the bodies were of adults and teenagers whose ages could not be ascertained. Agents found two documents – an identity card from Mauritania and a register of entry in Mauritania that belonged to someone from Mali.
The corpses of the deceased were buried in a secular ceremony organized by several groups involved in their recovery, such as the UN Refugee Agency, the Red Cross and the International Organization for Migration, as well as the Brazilian police, navy and civil defence agencies.
Their coffins were lowered into graves, and those present watched in respectful silence.
Twenty-five raincoats and 27 mobile phones were found on their boat, suggesting the number of passengers was significantly higher. This also implies that people of other nationalities may have been among the deceased
