Eight migrants picked up from boat which landed on Axarquia beach with two bodies

By Joe Gerrard • Published: 11 Nov 2018 • 15:08

BOAT LANDING: The whereabouts of five of the migrants remains unknown (file photo), photo credit: Shutterstock

GUARDIA CIVIL and National Police officers have picked up eight migrants believed to have been travelling on a boat which arrived on an Axarquia beach carrying two corpses yesterday (Saturday).
Police said the boat, which landed on Chilches beach near Velez-Malaga yesterday afternoon, had been carrying 15 people when it arrived. The boat, whose passengers where all Moroccan, left Morocco at around 2am on Thursday, officers added.
A local fisherman had called police after he saw the boat make landfall on the beach and those in it getting out at around 2.40pm.
Officers from Velez-Malaga and Rincon de la Victoria were deployed to the area. Police said they found the bodies of two young people when they arrived, with one of them believed to have been a youth.
Two people displaying the symptoms of hypothermia were also found there. They have been taken to hospital while the two bodies are now with coroners at Malaga’s Institute of Legal Medicine (IML).
Police said the migrants’ inflatable boat had taken on water by the time it arrived on the beach. Officers were later able to trace more occupants bringing the total found to eight, with the whereabouts of five others currently unknown.
The investigation and search continues.