Héctor Márquez, aka “Chico,” went out very early on Monday, August 31 to fish aboard his small motorboat, which he named Josmarcito, off the coast of Puerto Ángel, in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. He had only enough fuel for the routine trip, no more than a few hours. This Monday marked a week since he went missing. Fishermen from his community had gone out to search for him every day. Family and friends kept vigils on the shore awaiting news of Chico. Later in the day, on September 7, Chico was located and rescued by a vessel from the Mexican Navy, sources at the institution confirmed to EL PAÍS.
Good news had arrived a day earlier. According to local media, a cargo ship sighted him at sea on Sunday, photographed him, and recorded his coordinates, which it later shared with the community. The facts are somewhat unclear as to why they did not rescue him there and then. Media reports say Chico refused to leave his boat and preferred to wait for a rescue from his own community. The cargo ship provided him with fuel and some supplies. “So we have to get to that point and start tracking him, because he didn’t want to get on the ship. He stayed, and we have to go help him,” a fisherman said in a video posted on social media by people from Chico’s community.
The photo of Márquez, in which he appears to be making a kind of upward salute with a calm expression on his face, triggered a flood of news items suggesting the castaway had been rescued. But relatives of the fisherman clarified on their social media that he remained missing and called for the search to continue. Other accounts asked the public to help by donating provisions and gasoline to the fishermen who had been out looking for him.
“I ask you, please: to all those people who are posting that my brother is already safe, I want to tell you that as his family we know he is alive, but no ship has picked him up, it only gave him provisions, and no rescue vessel has taken him aboard. Let us continue praying that the boats that left Puerto Ángel will find him,” two of Márquez’s brothers posted on Facebook before the Mexican Navy intervened.
There had been no official information on whether any authority, the Secretariat of the Navy or the state government of Oaxaca, had been assisting in the search for Chico. His relatives uploaded videos showing several fishermen pushing their own boats into the water with jerrycans of fuel on board, heading out to sea. Meanwhile, dozens of people stood on the sand looking at the horizon. “We will find him, we will find him,” a fisherman is heard saying in one of the videos. On Monday, finally, Chico was located and rescued.
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