Survivors Turned to Cannibalism by SUSANNAH A. NESMITH Associated Press Writer BARAHONA, Dominican Republic (AP) -- Survivors of a nightmarish shipwreck stayed alive by eating the bodies of fellow voyagers who died during a three-week ordeal, a Dominican migrant said. Only two people survived the illegal attempt to migrate from the Dominican Republic to neighboring Puerto Rico. About 60 Dominicans were believed to have crowded onto the boat, which suffered engine problems and drifted for weeks without power before it hit a coral reef off Haiti and sank last Thursday. ''Every night someone died and in the morning the others would cut them up and eat them,'' said Carlos Pinales, 19, one of two survivors brought to the Dominican Republic from neighboring Haiti on Tuesday. Pinales said he did not eat any human flesh, though a doctor said it would have been impossible for him to survive otherwise. He was still suffering dehydration and seemed disoriented when he arrived in the Dominican border town of Barahona. The other survivor has woken only a few times to ask for water or mumble a name -- Felix Antonio Marcelino Borges. Officials had thought that was his name, but now are not sure. Both are to be moved to Santo Domingo, the capital, later this week. A third survivor died in a Haitian hospital Friday. Pinales said the two captains who organized the illegal trip collected $240 from each passenger, and then deserted them. They left the group in a boat by a pier in the southeastern resort town of La Romana, leaving them to brave the eastern voyage across the Mona Passage alone. The boat's engine died within sight of Puerto Rico, on the second day at sea. They began drifting west, ending up hundreds of miles in the opposite direction. Without food or water, people began dying after several days adrift. At first the bodies were thrown overboard, he said. Then the voyagers began to eat the bodies. Pinales said he only drank salt water. But Dr. Urania Suarez, who examined him in Barahona, said that did not seem possible: ''The only way he could have survived was to eat them.'' By the time the boat sank Thursday, only three people were alive, Pinales said. In a Dominican government report, Pinales also was quoted as saying that fights broke out among the migrants. Some were injured, but it was not clear if those injuries led to any deaths. Sixteen bodies washed ashore at Ile-a-Vache, an island off southern Haiti; 13 had to be buried in a common grave because they were too decomposed. The bodies of about 40 others remain missing. Thousands of Dominicans set out by boat to reach Puerto Rico each year, seeking prosperity on the U.S. island 75 miles to the east. _______________________________________________ CrashList website: http://website.lineone.net/~resource_base
