Archive Event Highlight
AP Journalists Discuss 2-Year Investigation Into Deadly Ocean Voyages of Migrants
by Chad Bouchard
Associated Press visual journalists Renata Brito and Felipe Dana were shocked when they first stumbled on a local news story in May 2021 about a small boat that had turned up in Trinidad and Tobago with the decomposing bodies of more than a dozen men. Having reported extensively on global migration issues, they noticed that the type of boat shown in the story was one they had often seen migrants use to cross from Mauritania to Spain.
“It made me wonder if this boat drifted across the Atlantic,” Brito said. “How many others are lost or sank or are missing? It just rang alarm bells in my head that we need to look into this.”
On July 17, Brito and Dana discussed this discovery and how they embarked on a two-year investigation into the perilous ocean journeys of migrants from West Africa who died or barely survived while drifting to the Caribbean.
Mary Rajkumar, global investigations editor of the AP and a governor of the OPC, served as moderator for the program. She served as an editor for the story, along with Ted Anthony. The discussion was part of the OPC’s “How I Did It” series, to discuss their AP project titled “Adrift,” which has won several awards including the OPC’s Kim Wall Award this year.
Brito and Dana discussed some of the challenges in their reporting, which covered multiple countries as they faced scant sources, resistance from governments, and the emotional difficulty in delivering tragic news to loved ones.
They found sparse information from governments or NGOs on the migration routes from West Africa to Europe. “Very little monitoring. So you really have to find people on the ground in local communities who are willing to talk to you and even then they might not have that much information. It’s very opaque,” Brito said.
To identify victims, Brito and Dana used clues such as clothing from the bodies, called contacts from cell phones that were found in the wreckage, and conducted DNA tests.
“We basically opened every single evidence bag that was closed for almost six months at that time, and we photographed every item,” Dana said. “And then we shared that evidence with the families to see if they could recognize some of those items.”
Rajkumar asked Brito and Dana, who are married, how they worked together as a team and navigated frustrations.
They said despite a few disagreements during the reporting, their differences in skills and approaches turned out to be complementary, and were a benefit to their investigation rather than a hindrance.
“We also really helped each other through these two years, because it was really challenging, in terms of the reporting, emotionally speaking. Carrying a story like that for two years is really difficult, especially when you don’t know how it’s going to turn out. And because of all the implications, the families, and the answers they’re seeking.”
You can see the stories here: Adrift, 36 Days, AP Mini-Doc Reconstructs the Journey of Migrants Who Survived 36 Days at Sea.
Click the window below to watch a playlist of video clips from the program.
