About the book
It was 1 pm on April 30, 2006.
Journalist Nicolás Castellano confirmed on Cadena SER that a boat had arrived on the island of Barbados with several corpses on board.
‘In This Great Sea’: The Terrifying Story of How 11 African Migrant Mummies Found on a Yacht Adrift in Barbados
Juan Manuel Pardellas The book describes one of the most difficult episodes of young African migration to Europe: how 53 Senegalese embarked from Cape Verde on a Spanish pirate’s yacht with the promise of reaching the Canary Islands and all died. Only eleven bodies appeared, four months later, on the other side of the Atlantic.
The young Africans boarded the yacht ‘Bonnie and Clyde’, owned by a Spaniard, on the night of December 24, 2005, on the beach of Palmeira (Sal Island, Cape Verde)
Four months later, on April 26, 2006, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean and 76 miles from Ragged Point (Caribbean island of Barbados), fisherman Reuben Moore discovers the same yacht adrift, completely rusty, with only eleven mummified bodies inside.
A handwritten note by Diao Souncar Dieme, written shortly before his death, is the only thin thread that can be pulled on to discover how such a human tragedy occurred.
The case received worldwide attention and was covered by the most important media outlets, as well as mobilizing hundreds of police officers from all continents, the most prestigious experts in Europe in identifying victims after catastrophes, and the justice services of Barbados and Spain.
That shock served as a stimulus for me to find out what had happened.
For years as a journalist, I devoted myself to this case, almost sickly. Today, finally, I can announce the launch of its book version: ‘In this great sea’ is the story of how 53 young people embarked on Christmas Eve 2005 in the Palmeira bay (Sal Island, Cape Verde), on the yacht of a Spaniard, who charged them more than a thousand euros each with the promise of reaching the Canary Islands in less than four days.
No one ever heard from them again until a character straight out of a Hemingway novel, the old fisherman Reuben Moore, found the same boat, rusty, without a mast, adrift, 76 miles from Ragged Point (Barbados Island), on the other side of the Atlantic.
It was April 26, 2006. That is, four months later, more than 4,000 kilometers away from where they had set sail. It was a macabre discovery. Of the 53 Africans who had boarded the first time, only eleven mummified bodies were found.
Source: https://algunoslibrosbuenos.com/en-este-gran-mar