Matías Roco, 22, is the young man from San Antonio Oeste who has been missing since February 9 when the artisanal fishing boat ‘Paola Andrea’ sank, where the other three crew members who accompanied him were rescued at the height of Caleta de los Loros, in the San Matías Gulf.
The boy’s family requests that technological means be available to improve the search. Jesús Roco stated in statements to REVISTA PUERTO that in SAO there are Prefectural coastal boats with probes up to 30 meters deep, and points out that in the search area the depths are greater.
“The Prefecture has other coast guards that have greater probing capacity, which are in Puerto Madryn or Buenos Aires, but two weeks have passed and they have not brought them,” he lamented.
“There is a point where the sinking is believed to have occurred and the search area is centered there, but it is deeper than 45 meters. This is near Caleta de los Loros 5.8 miles from the coast, where the other crew members were found,” she detailed.
As for the land searches, family members and neighbors are the ones who go out daily to explore that coastal area located more than 50 kilometers from San Antonio Oeste.
On the other hand, Jesús Roco revealed that he has not maintained any contact with the other three crew members who managed to survive the boat accident. “No one approached or was able to send a message. I crossed two and they didn’t even greet me, including the skipper of the boat, ”he questioned without having an explanation for such action.
“Matías was just learning the trade. This year he was planning to finish high school. He had planned to take the course to have the notebook to go out on the boat, ”he told him about the plans of the young man from Rio Negro.
Regarding the regulatory qualifications and authorizations of the vessel, Roco questioned the contradictions of the PNA. “First they say that she had nothing and then that they only needed a piece of paper. What is true is that they had not made the dispatch, but most of the fishing boats do not make the dispatch because the Prefecture has to go to the camp where they are and if they wait, they lose the tide”, he recounted what was able to collect from other artisanal fishermen regarding these practices in the informal sector.
They admit that there is a kind of use and customs that goes fishing without leaving records of departures, or crew roles. “The camp where the boats wait to go to the fishing area is 45 kilometers from San Antonio, and they do not dispatch because there are no people from the Prefecture there,” said the father of the young fisherman who disappeared.
“What I ask is that a larger survey boat come,” he reiterated, expressing his impotence and anguish over the circumstance that the whole family is going through.
