3 STOWAWAYS FOUND DEAD IN CARGO.Byline: Judie Glave Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Three stowaways Stowaways are a Portuguese band from Matosinhos, who formed in 2001. They are made up of Nuno Sousa (vocals and guitar); Pedro Gonçalves (guitar); João Carujo, (drums)and Sérgio Seabra (bass). Fred on keyboards and João Covita on the accordion are more recent additions. were found dead among bags of cocoa beans on a cargo ship arriving from Africa and may have been killed by a pesticide sprayed in the sealed hold. The men, who were not immediately identified, were discovered aboard the Ostfriesland, a 496-foot vessel registered in Singapore. It arrived Tuesday in Brooklyn. The stowaways had sneaked onto the ship before it left Abidjan, the capital of the Ivory Coast Ivory Coast: see Côte d'Ivoire. in West Africa, on March 3 and apparently hid in the cargo hold for the trip across the Atlantic, the Coast Guard said. "One can surmise that they came for the same reasons everyone does. I take it life was not very kind where they came from," said Inspector Franco Pollini of the Immigration and Naturalization Service Noun 1. Immigration and Naturalization Service - an agency in the Department of Justice that enforces laws and regulations for the admission of foreign-born persons to the United States INS . The crew had sprayed the hold areas with a powerful pesticide, then sealed them, a few days after the ship set out to sea. The spraying is required by the U.S. Agriculture Department. The bodies were found Monday, wedged between giant containers of cocoa beans, when the crew reopened the holds to ventilate ventilate, v 1. to provide with fresh air. v 2. to provide the lungs with air from the atmosphere. v 3. to open, to free, as in to openly express one's feelings. them before docking. Autopsies will be conducted today. A fourth stowaway, Seth Lawson, 24, of Ghana, was found alive on deck a few days after the Ostfriesland sailed. "He was in good health and quite shocked when they told him about the other three," said customs spokeswoman Janet Rapaport. "He had no idea they were there." Ed Curlett, an Agriculture Department spokesman, said cocoa beans from the Ivory Coast are typically treated with phosphine phosphine 1. PH3, a toxic war gas called hydrogen phosphide. 2. a coal tar dye; called Philadelphia yellow. , which he said is used in pellet form and allowed to evaporate in a sealed hold. "It's definitely toxic to humans," he said. "You don't want to be in there." Lawson was under ship arrest. The shipping line, the Copenhagen-based D/S D/S Downstream D/S Duty Station D/S Duration of Status (immigration) D/S Dominance and Submission D/S Downsize D/S Design Standard D/S Dynamic/Static D/S Digital to Synchro Torm, is responsible for returning him to Abidjan. It also is responsible for returning the bodies to the Ivory Coast or arranging for burial here. 
Melinda Hunt (Member): Bodies are listed in the database of the The Hart Island Project 9/7/2009 10:31 AM
The stowaways were buried as unknown males, age 20 in the NYC public cemetery on Hart Island on January 8, 1997.
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