MARÍN (Spain), March 19 — Spain’s King Felipe VI attended a memorial service yesterday for 21 sailors who died or are missing at sea after a Spanish fishing trawler sank last month in stormy waters off Canada.
The king and his wife, Queen Letizia, shook hands and embraced relatives of the victims at the packed church service in the port of Marin in Spain’s northwestern region of Galicia where the trawler was based.
Hundreds of people who could not fit inside the church watched the ceremony on a large screen set up outside.
The Archbishop of Santiago de Compostela, Julian Barrio, told the mourners that “it is not easy to understand and accept” the loss of these 21 sailors.
The Villa de Pitanxo sank in the dark early on February 15, tossing its 24 crew members into icy seas.
Rescuers found three survivors in a lifeboat suffering from severe hypothermia and recovered nine bodies but the remains of the remaining 12 crew members were never found.
Canadian rescuers called off their hunt after 36 hours even though family members of the 12 still missing begged the authorities not to give up the search, if only so they can bury the bodies of their loved ones.
The crew on the 50-metre (160-ft) vessel included 16 Spaniards, five Peruvians and three Ghanaians. — AFP
