This morning, a catamaran was found adrift with a dead man on board in Belizean waters. It was found about 8 miles east of Caye Caulker near Mauger Caye. The distress call came from a cruise ship that received a distress call from the catamaran.
And though the vessel is Guatemalan, tonight Belize Police have launched an investigation into the circumstances of the elderly man's death.
CEO in the Ministry of Home Affairs Francis Usher explained the details of the rescue and what first responders encountered on board.
Francis Usher, CEO, Ministry of Defense
"So on Monday we received a call from the MSC Divina cruise ship about a vessel in distress that was adrift east of Belize City in our EEZ. And so the call said that there was a woman in distress and a body, someone was deceased onboard so we started to alert our regional partners about potential you know that they could help us retrieve the vessel we understood that the cruise ship helped the woman in distress, took her aboard but they left the body and vessel adrift. This morning the vessel was towed to Caye Caulker where CIB and the police department did their initial investigation, they found what seemed to be wounds I don't want to speak on behalf of the department but what I can say is because of what was seen on the body and because of the state of decomposition of the body it was transported to Belize City, the vessel was towed to the coast guard base where it is being secured for further investigation."
"There were, or it appears that, there are some signs of wounds on the Body and that's why the police department brought it into Belize City to do further investigation."
"So the coast guard and the police department are in communication with the son of the deceased and he indicated that his father, because it is a male deceased, his father and the female left Livingston about a week ago."
"So I would assume probably about 3 to 4 days that she was onboard the catamaran if the catamaran left about a week ago and she received help on Monday."
We'll let you know what the findings of the investigation are.
