However, investigations into their identities are ongoing.

"Several passports were recovered at the scene which appears to be from the Republic of Mali," Superintendent Junior Simmons said in a video message.

"The remains were in an advanced state of decomposition, and some were not fully intact."

Local police received on Monday morning around 16h45 CAT a report about the 13.716-metre vessel that washed ashore in Little Bay on Canouan, to the south of the archipelago Caribbean nation.

Simmons said the remains had been transported to mainland St. Vincent pending further forensic and investigative procedures.
In nearby St. Kitts and Nevis, authorities in January said they had discovered a vessel where they found the bodies of 19 people who they estimated had been at sea for a long period due to the advanced stage of decomposition.

They also found identifications suggesting some of those passengers also came from Mali, a landlocked West African nation some 6 200 km east across the Atlantic Ocean.

--Reuters--