By WILL WEISSERT
Associated Press Writer

PUNTA GORDA, Belize (AP) _ The three men came aboard dressed like poor Guatemalan farmers, in dusty derby hats, striped work shirts and black boots. But the simple cotton satchels they carried were filled with machine guns. ``We didn't ask any questions then because we never do,'' said Reynaldo Guerrero, a co-owner of the charter boat the men hijacked Tuesday, leaving five people dead, three injured and his 24-year-old nephew still missing somewhere in the Caribbean Sea. ``We never had any reason to suspect anybody.'' Guerrero waited anxiously Friday for the arrival of a crop-duster to scour a 30-plus-square-mile stretch of ocean along the Guatemala-Belize border. He still hoped to find his nephew, the boat's captain Julio Requena Jr. In a town not accustomed to crime, police in this low-crime town still don't know the identity of the hijackers or why they attacked the boat. The ``Mariestela,'' with seven passengers and a crew of two, was about 20 minutes into its 75-mile voyage across the Gulf of Honduras _ from Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, to Punta Gorda, Belize _ when the shooting started. Five people were killed and the others jumped over the side and were later rescued. Requena was one of the first to be shot, but jumped off the boat in an effort to swim to safety, his 21-year-old sister Claudia Requena said. ``He's an excellent swimmer and he's very athletic, so we still hope he's alive out there,'' she said. ``But now, after all this time, we really just want to find him, in whatever condition he happens to be in.'' In this coastal village's only paved street, 300 mourners flooded into the town's Roman Catholic church to mourn 59-year-old Alice Ireheta. Ireheta, a mother of five who owned a local grocery store and was eagerly awaiting the birth of her first grandchild, had been on her way home from Puerto Barrios, where she had spent the morning volunteering at a local church. ``My mother was such a kind and caring person,'' Ireheta's daughter Minerva said, fighting back tears. The country's lead investigator Bernard Lino said he still didn't know why the men had attacked the boat. ``People have begun saying that this was probably drug-related, that these men were into cocaine and needed a boat. But we have been unable to confirm or deny that,'' said Lino, who traveled 100 miles south from the Belizean capital of Belmopan. Lino said the hijackers are believed to be Guatemalan because they boarded the boat bound for Belize with ``trip passes,'' which allow Guatemalan citizens to cross between the two port cities without a passport. He said tracking them down could be difficult. Guatemalan authorities recovered the boat abandoned on the Sarstoon River on Friday night, and nobody knows where the hijackers went from there. ``There are a lot of places for them to hide out there on the water,'' Lino said. ``We just don't know how long we could be looking.'' Police presume they got onto another boat _ something that could work in the police's favor since travel by small boat on the gulf's choppy waters is no easy proposition. Crime in Punta Gorda is low. But on the other side of the gulf, in steamy 30,000-inhabitant Puerto Barrios, many of the inhabitants have become more desensitized to violence. On the main highway, which winds and curves its way 164 miles southeast from the crime-ridden sprawl of Guatemala City, parked police cars watch the road every 40 miles, in an attempt to deter the hijacking of passenger buses which has become common. No such patrols keep watch over the waters between Guatemala and Belize. ``Maybe they should do that,'' said Efrain Sagastome, a fisherman and fruit exporter, as he loaded soap from El Salvador, plastic containers from Honduras and chocolate from Pennsylvania onto his 12-foot skiff. ``It doesn't look like it, but these can be very dangerous waters.''

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