Young Mexican fisher's family want to quiz surviving castaway

Jose Salvador Alvarenga washed ashore after apparently 13 months adrift in the Pacific. Photo / AP

The family of a man believed to have died during Jose Salvador Alvarenga's epic voyage across the Pacific have asked that the castaway be returned to Mexico to answer their questions.

Alvarenga washed up in the Marshall Islands last week saying he had a companion called "Ezequiel" who had died after about a month from refusing to eat. According to the civil defence office in Chiapas, Mexico, a small fishing boat carrying two men named Cirilo Vargas and Ezequiel Cordoba disappeared on November 17, 2012.

Alvarenga's parents, who live in El Salvador, have said he was known there as "Cirilo". The family of fisherman Ezequiel Cordoba, 22, had heard him named as Alvarenga's dead companion in a television report but had received no official confirmation.

His grandmother Dominga Mendoza said: "I always had hope that we'd see him again one day, that he'd come home. I feel so sad. But until we heard his name on the news, I had hope. I ask God to look after him."

Alvarenga, 37, who was known locally by the nickname La Chancha (the pig), and Cordoba, known as Pinata, disappeared in a storm that still weighs heavily on the local community. Three boats with six fishermen on board were lost.

The Cordoba family knew Alvarenga only vaguely and said Ezequiel began fishing two months before he disappeared.

His brother Romeo Cordoba, 29, also a fisherman, said: "We ask the authorities to bring the shipwrecked man, La Chancha, back here or take some of us to meet him, so we can find out was it really our brother who he is talking about. If it is, why did he die? Why wouldn't he eat raw fish and birds? What did he do with his body? There is a lot of confusion and we want to hear it from La Chancha.

"It's a miracle that La Chancha survived at sea for 14 months, and we feel no anger towards him. We understand this was an accident and how dangerous the sea can be. But we need confirmation from him before we can accept his death."