51-year-old mystery in Arrecife

Five bodies were exhumed at Arrecife cemetery yesterday in an attempt to solve a 51-year-old tragedy.

On 1^st February 1971, the fishing boat Domenech De Varo, from Cadiz, capsized off the coast of Mala on Lanzarote. Of the twelve crew members, only two survived. In the following days, three bodies were washed up, identified and returned to their loved ones for burial.

The families of the rest of the deceased crew members believed they were lost at sea, unaware that five further bodies had been recovered near Mala. Poor communications between the island and the mainland at the time meant that the information was never communicated.

It was only in 2022 when the son of one of the victims, Jose Manuel Pose, discovered the existence of five unidentified bodies, marked with numbers 70, 72, 73, 75 and 76, in Arrecife’ s cemetery.

The exhumations will take DNA samples from the bodies in order to confirm their identity.