The families of the Domenech de Varó, the fishing boat based in El Puerto de Santa María that sank off the coast of Lanzarote on February 6, 1973, have been able to identify two new bodies of the crew members of the Cadiz boat. The tragedy left ten dead, three were identified fifty years ago by the skipper of the boat Vicente Yáñez, who managed to survive with another sailor. However, five bodies were recovered days later and buried in five unnamed niches.
After 50 years and after the tribute of Francisco Javier Roselló Marroquín to his father Jaime Roselló Zaragoza, deceased and unidentified sailor from El Puerto de Santa María and the rest of the crew, the Association of Relatives and Friends of the Victims of the Sinking of the Domenech de Varó Ship was created with the aim of dignifying the victims of the shipwreck, with a central purpose of identifying the remains of the five anonymous niches.
As a result of this work of the association and thanks to the collaboration of public administrations such as: Diputación de Cádiz, General Directorate of Fisheries and Aquaculture of the Junta de Andalucía, City Council of Sanlúcar de Barrameda as well as private entities such as: Fundación Unicaja and Fishermen's Association of Sanlúcar de Barrameda, it was possible to exhume the remains of the five anonymous niches and obtain samples to compare the DNA with the DNA of the relatives, yielding two positives: José Antonio López Gallardo and Tomás Ladrón de Guevara, both sailors from Barbate.
Who is in niche 69?
After these identifications and not having met the minimum expectations of the Association, which expected a minimum of three positive identifications, it is proposed that the sailor Antonio Rodríguez Rivera from Sanlúcar de Barrameda, identified in February 1973 and buried in niche 69, be identified with the authorization of his sister, by means of a DNA test.
The DNA study reflects that the sailor is not buried in niche 69. In the process of reducing remains from this niche 69, a wedding ring appeared that once transferred to the genetics laboratory Labgenetic of Madrid and after cleaning, an inscription was found that says: "Milagros 9~12~1963". This was the wedding date of Jaime and Milagros, father and mother of Francisco Javier Roselló Marroquín, once the DNA was studied, it was concluded with another positive in niche 69 in which the remains of Jaime Roselló Zaragoza, a sailor native to Altea and based in El Puerto de Santa María, are found.
After this error, the DNA of the sister of D. Antonio Rodríguez Rivera was compared with the rest of the DNA from the first exhumations, yielding another positive result with the remains of niche 70.
Currently there are four positive identifications by means of DNA tests.
- Niche 69. Jaime Roselló Zaragoza from El Puerto de Santa María.
- Niche 70. Antonio Rodríguez Rivera, from Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
- Niche 72. José Antonio López Gallardo, from Barbate.
- Niche 76. Tomás Ladrón de Guevara, from Barbate.
The next steps of the Association will be to present a new voluntary jurisdiction file to obtain authorization and be able to exhume the remains of niches 67, 68, 71 and 74, since identification and burial errors have already been evidenced, in addition to contradictions between the February 1973 sheet of the San Román Cemetery and the Military Legal report, which was carried out due to the grounding of the Domenech de Varó in 1973, to try to identify the other sailors buried in 1973 and know 100% the sailors who could not be rescued from the sea.
The sailors who have not yet been identified are:
- Julio Pose Cantos, native of Malpica, based in Cádiz.
- Juan Rodríguez Coronel, from Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
- José Rivero Cortés, from Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
- Manuel Oliva Barber, from Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
The Association continues working to clarify the history of the sinking of the Domenech de Varó, a history that, although due to lack of means or the time they had to live, did not dignify their profession, their deaths, or their families.
