“Many believe the book is making my client a rich man, but what he will earn is much less than people think,” Cucalon said. Ricardo Cucalon, Alvarenga’s attorney, told The Telegraph he believes the lawsuit is part of the family’s attempt at pressuring Alvarenga to divide the royalties.Ĭucalon told The Telegraph that the book has done poorly in the U.S. The family’s lawsuit comes on the heels of the October release of Alvarenga’s book 438 Days: An Extraordinary True Story of Survival at Sea. Alvarenga has always denied eating his crewmate. Two months later, Alvarenga visited Cordoba’s mother, Rosalia Rios, and delivered her son’s message. Dazed and emaciated, he was found by a couple living on the island who took him in. Mr Alvarenga washed up in the Marshall Islands, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, in January 2014. “I could see my death was going to be very, very slow,” he said.īut against all odds, he survived. Mr Alvarenga befriended the corpse, keeping it on the boat for six days and chatting to it, until he realized his own insanity and threw it overboard. A poisonous snake was discovered in the bird’s stomach.Īccording to Alvarenga’s account, Cordoba refused to eat some of the raw meats that kept Alvarenga alive - perhaps because of the experience with the bird - and he eventually died.īefore starving to death, Cordoba made Alvarenga promise to not eat his corpse and to find his mother and tell her what happened. That message was the last words communicated to shore as 10-foot waves and the vicious storm knocked out the communications system and washed their supplies overboard.Īlvarenga and Cordoba survived several months by catching fish and birds, and drinking turtle blood and rainwater, but one bird they ate made Cordoba very ill. When a storm hit, Alvarenga radioed the owner of the 25-foot boat demanding to be rescued. It was the longest any castaway had survived at sea.Īlvarenga had paid 22-year-old Ezequiel Cordoba $50 to accompany him. Cast Away is the culmination of a careerlong interest in migration and. The family of the deceased castaway contends, according to The Telegraph and other media outlets.Īfter drifting 6,700 miles, Salvador Alvarenga, 36, of El Salvador washed ashore in January 2014 on the Marshall Islands in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after setting off on a two-day fishing trip from Mexico in November 2012. True Stories of Survival from Europe s Refugee Crisis Charlotte McDonald-Gibson. Photo: Associated Press via The TelegraphĪ fisherman who miraculously survived 438 days lost at sea has been sued for $1 million for allegedly eating his fellow castaway to ensure his own survival. Castaway Salvador Alvarenga is being sued for cannibalism by the family of Ezequiel Cordoba (inset).
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