Po­lice be­lieve one of the bod­ies seen aboard a mys­tery boat off the east coast of Trinidad may have washed ashore in Man­zanil­la.

Po­lice said around 10.15 pm on Mon­day, a watch­man at a con­struc­tion site along the Man­zanil­la/Ma­yaro Road dis­cov­ered a de­com­posed body float­ing in shal­low wa­ter near the coast­line. He im­me­di­ate­ly alert­ed his co-work­ers, who then con­tact­ed of­fi­cers at the Man­zanil­la Po­lice Sta­tion.

A team of of­fi­cers, led by Cpl Sook­wah, re­spond­ed and found the body ap­prox­i­mate­ly 150 feet from the road­way, par­tial­ly sub­merged near the shore­line. In­ves­ti­ga­tors are now work­ing to de­ter­mine the iden­ti­ty of the per­son and whether it is linked to the miss­ing ves­sel.

The Trinidad and To­ba­go Coast Guard (TTCG) re­port­ed that on Sat­ur­day at 2.22 pm, a fish­ing ves­sel car­ry­ing five bod­ies was spot­ted drift­ing near the Cas­sia plat­form off the south­east coast. 

On Sun­day, while at­tempt­ing to tow it to shore, the Coast Guard said the tow­line sep­a­rat­ed, and the ves­sel dis­ap­peared from their view, ac­cord­ing to a re­lease is­sued on the in­ci­dent. It is pre­sumed to have sunk.

Au­thor­i­ties sus­pect the boat may have orig­i­nat­ed from the coast of West Africa, sim­i­lar to a ves­sel found off To­ba­go in May 2021, which had al­so drift­ed across the At­lantic with dead mi­grants aboard.

Of­fi­cials have urged any­one with in­for­ma­tion or sight­ings of the boat or re­lat­ed de­bris to con­tact the TTCG at 868-224-3324.

In­ves­ti­ga­tions are on­go­ing.