The bodies of seven people found in a container that arrived in Paraguay from Serbia: Migrants ate to survive!

Research in Paraguay, Photo: Tanjug

Terrible death! Seven migrants, whose bodies were found in an advanced state of decomposition on Friday, in a container with fertilizer in Paraguay, ate each other to survive! The container left Serbia on July 22, and at the beginning of the week, via Argentina, arrived at the river port of the Paraguayan capital, Asunción, the prosecutor Marcelo Saldívar announced. Near the three dead were found refugee identifications issued in Serbia and, according to those identifications, they are Ahmed Belmilouji (20) and Said Rashid (35), both from Morocco, and the Egyptian Iasi Barabari (19). Along with them was also found a receipt from a Serbian taxi company. The victims’ clothing also included a pass from the migrant center in Adasevci near Shida. According to the prosecutor, this is why the migrants are suspected of entering the container in Serbia, but the entire route is being reviewed.

When the body was found, all Paraguayan services joined the investigation, and the forensic doctor Rosa Romero affirmed that based on the traces collected so far, it is suspected that at least one of the deceased ate human corpses, and that other bodies have not yet been examined!

For now, it has been determined that one of the passengers died of suffocation and that the other passenger ate his remains. It is being determined whether other passengers were forced into cannibalism to survive, Rosa Romero said.

– The bodies were found on Friday, when the manager of the company that bought the fertilizer opened the container. An investigation was immediately launched, in which the Paraguayan authorities contacted their Serbian colleagues to determine where the blind passengers boarded. They also contacted the owner of the company that imported fertilizers from Serbia. He said that he has been doing business with the Serbian fertilizer producer Sabac for seven years and that he always asks for more containers, in addition to the fact that so far everything has been respected to the maximum – affirmed the Paraguayan prosecutor Saldívar.

As we learned, the blind passengers were in a container with bags of fertilizer produced at the Sabac fertilizer factory. Then, the transshipment took place in the port of Prahovo, from where the container sailed through Croatia, where it stopped briefly, and then continued by sea to South America.

Container movement map, Photo: Private archive

As they were equipped for a short journey, it is believed that they died for days in the severest torments.

– They had no food or water, and the situation was further aggravated by the summer heat. When fertilizer vapors and a small vent are added to that, it is concluded that they died in the worst agony in days, the Paraguayan media said.

An investigation was launched in Serbia to determine whether the blind passengers entered the container in Serbia or somewhere along the way.

– All options are open and we are working together with Interpol and the Refugee Commission to find out where the passengers boarded. Based on the data so far, versions that the migrants boarded by mistake because they took food within three days are not excluded. Also, since migrant smugglers are unscrupulous, we should not rule out the possibility that they have intentionally put them in the wrong container. Perhaps an error occurred during the shipment of this group, so they were simply placed in a container going to South America instead of a shipment to Europe. In any case, the emphasis was on determining whether they boarded the container of death in Serbia, our source said.

Only bones and hair remained from the migrants.

According to prosecutor Saldívar, traces were found in the part of the container that contained the bodies, confirming that they had food, water and cakes within 72 hours, as well as bags with clothes and an opening for ventilation.

– It assumes that they came to Serbia from other countries with the aim of going to a closer destination, but that they did not calculate the distance well and did not survive the trip. Of the blind passengers, only hair and bones remained, and that is due to the long period of time and the evaporation of fertilizers, which accelerated the rotting process – said Saldívar.

According to him, the route of the container will be checked, as well as the mobile phones found next to the body.

Commissariat: They were in our centers

The Refugee and Migration Commissariat confirmed that the people, whose identification cards from the Commissariat were found with the victims in the container in Paraguay, remained in our centers for the last time in July of this year.

Corpses, Photo: AP Jorge Saenz

– The cards found with them are the so-called Center Identification Cards that are used for our internal records and are used when dividing meals, verifying the number and the like. It’s good that at least those cards were found to find out what happened to the unfortunate people. This shows once again the desperation and willingness of migrants to risk their lives to go where they went. We hope the investigation will show if they got into the bins themselves, which is likely because it happens more frequently or according to someone else. Unfortunately, this is another in a series of their attempts to reach Western countries that ended in tragedy. These accidents have been happening continuously in recent years, we were told at the Refugee Commissariat.

The ship traveled thousands of kilometers

After reviewing the travel plan, that is, the ship’s log, the container that arrived in Paraguay crossed the first 400 kilometers by river from Serbia to Croatia. Subsequently, the container stopped in Egypt (2,350 kilometers) on the way and from there traveled to Spain (3,000 kilometers). From that Iberian country it reached Buenos Aires (10,550 kilometers) before arriving at the port of Villette in Paraguay (30 kilometers south of Asunción on the Paraguay River).