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Date Published: 25/01/2022
ARCHIVED - Police investigation after five bodies wash up on Malaga coastline in a week
One of the hypotheses is that the deceased were irregular migrants travelling in a small boat destined for the Costa del Sol
Police recovered the body of a young woman off the coast of Nerja on Monday January 24, the fifth corpse to wash up on the coastline of Malaga province in a week.
The deceased, three women and two men, were discovered at different locations in the province, and National Police and the Guardia Civil have launched an investigation.
According to sources, one of the hypotheses is that they were irregular migrants coming from northern Africa and destined for Andalucía aboard a small boat, known as a patera in Spanish, that may have capsized.
The most recent tragic discovery was made at around 1.30pm on Burriana beach when 112 Emergencias was alerted to a body floating in the water. The Guardia Civil and Maritime Rescue Service recovered the decomposed body of a young woman who is believed to have been "drifting in the sea" for several days.
Just 24 hours earlier, the body of a dead woman with a "high degree of decomposition" washed up at La Malagueta beach in Malaga, within days of the recovery of three lifeless bodies in Benalmádena and Cabo Pino in Marbella.
Whilst the two incidents have not been officially confirmed as connected, an extensive search operation was activated near Cabo de Gata in Almeria on January 9 after a boat carrying irregular migrants sank and 14 people were unaccounted for.
So far in 2022, Spain has registered the highest number of irregular migrants since 2019, with over 1,600 people arriving in the first two weeks of January alone.
Image: Archive
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