The tomb of Eléne Habiba Traore, the 24-month-old baby who died in Gran Canaria last March, in the San Lázaro cemetery. BORJA SUAREZ (Reuters)
The Prosecutor's Office has requested nine years in prison for the two patrons of the canoe in which Eléne Habiba traveled, the two-year-old girl who died on March 21 of dehydration in a hospital in Gran Canaria after two Red Cross toilets recovered her of cardiac arrest at the Arguineguín pier. The death of that girl from Mali, which shocked half of Spain —even the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, sent his condolences—, had behind it one of the most dramatic stories of the Canarian route in 2021: that of a boat in which Seven other people died of cold, hunger and thirst, including a child who was torn from his mother's arms by one of the skippers and thrown overboard.
The deaths of Eléne Habiba and the baby, whose mother is appearing in the case as a protected witness, are not the only homicides for which the Senegalese Amadou D. and Kate D. will have to answer on January 26 before the Court of Las Palmas. , the other pattern, from Gambia. Specifically, the Prosecutor's Office charges them with six homicides due to recklessness, because it admits that the other two people who died on the journey jumped into the sea to put an end to their agony. During the investigation of the case, the public prosecution and the defense reached an agreement in principle about what happened. In fact, the hearing for next January 26 is scheduled for Amadou D. and Kate D. to confirm that they assume responsibility for these events as reported by the prosecutor, as well as that they are satisfied with the sentence.
The Prosecutor's Office considered charging one of the defendants, Amadou D., with murder, because some of the survivors maintained that the boy, also two years old, was faint, but alive, when he was thrown into the ocean.
However, in the final qualification of the case, the Public Prosecutor's Office accepts that the little boy "had already lost his vital signs" when that happened, so it reduces the seriousness of what happened to reckless homicide.
The boat in which Elene Habiba, her mother, Massa, and her sister, Aichetou, three years old at the time, were traveling had left Dajla (Sahara) four days before it was located by Maritime Rescue. Its occupants had spent days waiting on the Saharan coast for the moment to embark, with food and water already scarce. According to police sources at the time, this explains why many were so weak when they were rescued by the
Salvamar Macondo
ship in the south of Gran Canaria, despite the fact that they had only been sailing for four days, a time that falls within normal limits for small boats. sailing from Dakhla.
13 of the 52 people left in the canoe that night ended up in the hospital.
The prosecutor's indictment details that, since the third day, there was no longer any water or food in the canoe, so some of its occupants began to drink from the sea (something that only accelerates dehydration and causes new health problems). .
In addition to the prison sentences, the Prosecutor's Office asks that the two employers compensate the mothers of Eléne Habiba and the child thrown overboard with 118,524 euros each.
