Four years af­ter a boat car­ry­ing 14 de­com­posed bod­ies drift­ed ashore in Belle Gar­den, To­ba­go, the fam­i­ly of the on­ly man who was for­mal­ly iden­ti­fied says they’ve made peace with the tragedy.

“We have all ac­cept­ed it. We are peo­ple of faith,” said the aunt of 30-year-old Alas­sane Sow, who was buried in Trinidad in March 2023.

In a mes­sage to Guardian Me­dia via What­sApp, (us­ing the trans­la­tor op­tion) the aunt May Sow said Sow’s moth­er, who lives in Mali, has nev­er vis­it­ed his grave be­cause she was de­nied a visa.

“She can­not get a visa,” she ex­plained. She al­so re­vealed that Sow’s wife has since re­mar­ried, and his moth­er has slow­ly found her­self. “She has found joy in life again,” she said. “I don’t want to re­mind her of that bad mem­o­ry.”

The aunt said fam­i­ly mem­bers have not been fol­low­ing the news of sim­i­lar boats ar­riv­ing in the re­gion. “We are not aware,” the aunt said, when asked whether re­cent dis­cov­er­ies have trig­gered any emo­tion­al flash­backs.

In Jan­u­ary this year, a ves­sel con­tain­ing the re­mains of five peo­ple was dis­cov­ered near the Cas­sia plat­form off­shore Trinidad and To­ba­go. The Coast Guard re­spond­ed and at­tempt­ed to tow the ves­sel to shore but the line broke and the ves­sel sank.

In St Kitts and Nevis, 13 de­com­pos­ing bod­ies were dis­cov­ered in a boat adrift off the coast al­so in Jan­u­ary.

Just last month, a ves­sel with 11 dead bod­ies washed ashore off St Vin­cent and the Grenadines.

Sow was laid to rest on March 3, 2023, at the Ch­agua­nas Pub­lic Ceme­tery fol­low­ing an Is­lam­ic fu­ner­al. His re­mains were re­cov­ered from a drift­ing ves­sel found off To­ba­go on May 28, 2021. Au­thor­i­ties be­lieve it had de­part­ed Mau­ri­ta­nia months ear­li­er with about 43 mi­grants on board, at­tempt­ing to reach Spain’s Ca­nary Is­lands.

In­stead, the ves­sel crossed the At­lantic and end­ed up in Caribbean wa­ters. Sow’s iden­ti­ty was con­firmed in Oc­to­ber 2022 through a DNA sam­ple from his moth­er, SIM card da­ta, and a black striped shirt he was known to wear.

In­ves­ti­ga­tors said some mi­grants try­ing to reach Eu­rope via the Ca­nary Is­lands in­stead drift thou­sands of miles off course when ves­sels en­counter is­sues or are lost at sea.

To date, Alas­sane Sow re­mains the on­ly per­son iden­ti­fied from the May 2021 ghost boat that ar­rived in To­ba­go.