Juan Esteban Montoya, a 22-year-old Colombian, was the only survivor of a shipwreck that occurred off the coast of Florida, United States. The nationality of the national was confirmed by the chain BBC World, which reported that Montoya is from Guacarí, Valle del Cauca.
The mother of the so far only survivor of the shipwreck that occurred over the weekend off the US East Coast, in which there are still 38 people missing (but whose rescue efforts were suspended), said that her son “held on to what was left of the boat, as seen in the photo”.
The photograph of Montoya clinging to a part of the ship that was shipwrecked has gone around the world.
In a statement to the Miami channel Telemundo 51, with her face covered, the woman, who was only identified as Marcia, revealed to the media that her 18-year-old daughter is also among the 38 disappeared, whom she already considers dead.
The woman explained that she has managed to speak by phone with her son, who is stable but remains hospitalized and in the custody of the United States immigration authorities.
“She told me: ‘Mom, my sister died, my sister drowned, I looked for her and I couldn’t find her. I called her and called her and my sister couldn’t stand it.’ It was the only thing she said to me,” said the mother. visibly excited.
“I lived through hell,” the 22-year-old survivor told his mother, to whom he revealed that minors and even babies were in the boat that capsized on Sunday. José Hernández, a spokesman for the coast guard, told the channel that neither the survivor nor the other passengers were wearing life jackets.
The woman, who considers “a miracle” that her offspring survived the event, asked the US immigration authorities for “understanding”.
“That they understand a devastated mother, devastated by the loss of a daughter, that they please set him free, so that I can be his support and he can be my support. I need my son with me so that you can force me to continue,” the woman asked.
The coast guards have continued all night on Wednesday the search for the 38 missing due to the shipwreck, from which the lifeless body of one person has already been recovered.
According to the story of the only survivor, a total of 40 people were on the boat, which departed Saturday night from Bimini, in the Bahamas Islands and capsized due to bad weather and tidal waves.
According to the Coast Guard, it could have been an immigrant smuggling trip and for the moment it has not disclosed the rest of the nationalities of those who were on the boat.
The agency, which is carrying out a search by sea and air, has warned that this operation “cannot continue forever,” as Captain Jo-Ann Burdian, commander of the Miami sector in the Coast Guard, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
The officer did not provide details about the person rescued or about the other occupants of the boat, nor about the identity of the deceased person out of respect for their “privacy and dignity”, according to what she said, and expressed her condolences to the families of the victims. of the shipwreck.
According to the authorities, it was a private ship that was sailing through the area, the “Signet Intruder”, which rescued the castaway on Tuesday, who was clinging to the keel of the 25-foot-long (7.6-meter) boat that it capsized about 40 miles (64 km) east of Fort Pierce Inlet.
As of Wednesday morning, an area in the sea equivalent to the area of the state of New Jersey, which is 8,723 square miles (22,500 square km), had been tracked by air and sea.
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