BRIDGETOWN, Barbados (CMC):

A decision will soon be made regarding the final resting place for the 11 bodies found in a small vessel drifting off Barbados four months ago.

Senegal Ambassador to New York, Monkhtar Kouyate, said he was expecting word from the Senegalese government about whether the bodies would remain in Barbados or be shipped to Senegal for the last rites, the Daily Nation reported yesterday.

The Barbados Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that correspondence had been sent to Senegal concerning expenses with local burial or alternatively, costs of shipping the bodies to that African country.

Meanwhile local and inter-national investigators identified one of the dead men as 29-year-old Senegal national Diao Souncar Dieme, the paper said.

The investigating team, which includes Barbados, Interpol and Nordic officials, has been seeking to trace the ill-fated voyage that started in Cape Verde, off the African coast, around December 24 and ended up in Barbados, where the 11 bodies were discovered about 72 miles off shore on April 29. The team has so far confirmed that authorities in Cape Verde, in close collaboration with colleagues in Senegal, arrested a Spanish national in connection with the ill-fated trip.

The original 52 passengers who set sail aboard the 10-foot vessel were drawn from various West African countries. They took the journey from Cape Verde, in the hope of reaching the Canary Islands of Spain, investigators say.