Seven of the eight people who died Saturday night when two suspected people-smuggling boats capsized near Black’s Beach are presumed to be citizens of Mexico, foreign consulate officials said Monday.
That presumption was “based on the identification that some of them were carrying,” Alberto Lozano, spokesman for the Consulate General of Mexico in San Diego, wrote in a press release.
The nationality of the eighth person was unknown Monday. Staff from the San Diego County Medical Examiner’s Office will identify the victims.
San Diego first responders and US Customs and Border Protection officers discovered the victims in the water and along the sand at Black’s Beach, at the foot of the cliffs just south of Torrey Pines Gliderport, after that a woman called 911 around 11:30 p.m. Saturday. . The woman, who spoke Spanish, told a dispatcher that there were eight people in her boat and between eight and 15 in a second boat that she had capsized.
When emergency crews arrived, they found two capsized boats, eight victims and no survivors, authorities said Sunday, adding that some people may have left before emergency personnel arrived. Several life jackets and fuel barrels had been abandoned along an approximately 400-yard stretch of sand.
Search and rescue efforts soon morphed into a search and recovery mission, though it was hampered by thick fog that rendered the helicopters useless.
Lifeguards with the San Diego Fire and Rescue Department searched the area until 5 a.m. Sunday. Since then, lifeguards have been patrolling the site and surrounding areas, spokeswoman Mónica Munoz said.
The Coast Guard sent a helicopter to the site late Saturday, but poor visibility caused them to quickly abandon the search. On Sunday morning, the agency dispatched a small boat, a cutter and a helicopter to assist in the search, but canceled its resources around 4 p.m., according to Adam Stanton, a Coast Guard spokesman.
With no more bodies discovered, authorities have turned their attention to identifying the eight victims and investigating who was responsible for the deadly mishap.
Border Patrol officials said a maritime task force from Homeland Security Investigations, an agency under the umbrella of the Department of Homeland Security, is investigating the incident. A DHS spokesperson declined to comment on the investigation Monday.
A spokesman for the county medical examiner’s office said no information was available on the identities of the victims as of Monday, but autopsies were underway. He said the staff will often work closely with consulate officials from the victim’s home country.
“There is a reasonable assumption that they are all from another country,” Chuck Westerheide, a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office, wrote in an email.
Westerheide said that even if the victims had identification, that “serves more as a clue or guide” and is not enough to start notifying family members. Fingerprints can help, although comparing them to records from another country is “sometimes difficult,” Westerheide wrote. “Tattoos or other identifying marks” can also help investigators confirm someone’s identity.
Lozano, the spokesman for the Mexican consulate, said that as soon as the medical examiner’s office confirms the identities, consulate officials will notify the families of the victims.
Carlos González Gutiérrez, the Mexican consul general in San Diego, thanked the emergency teams for their efforts and offered a warning to migrants to avoid putting their lives at risk.
“People planning to cross the border into the United States, whether by land or sea, should know that human smugglers will take advantage of their need to obtain illicit money, distorting reality, creating false expectations, and exposing them to situations of high risk. conditions in which they may lose their lives,” he said in a statement.
Lozano said those who believe their relatives may be among the dead can call the consulate’s emergency line at (619) 843-6399 or contact the office at proteccion@consulmexsd.org.
They can also contact the Center for Information and Attention to Mexicans —known as CIAM by its acronym in Spanish— in the United States at (520) 623-7874.
