Boat Carrying Haitian Migrants Capsizes in Bahamas; At Least 30 Dead
Above: a survivor rescued by the Coast Guard (Photo: USCG)
By the Caribbean Journal staff
The United States Coast Guard is continuing rescue efforts after a sail freighter carrying Haitian migrants capsized on Monday night, killing at least 30.
The ship capsized about 15 nautical miles southwest of Staniel Cay in the Bahamas, according to the Coast Guard.
A helicopter crew arrived and hoisted 13 people from the water after the Coast Guard deployed a “mass rescue raft.”
The coast guard said 111 migrants had been rescued in the operation, following the rescue of another survivor on a small island nearby on Wednesday.
The capsizing is the latest in a line of similar incidents involving migrants from Haiti. Last year, the United Nations began a programme seeking to discourage what it called “dangerous irregular migration” from Haiti’s northwestern coast, an area that sends migrants to countries around the region, including the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos, usually in unsafe, poorly-maintained sloops.
See more in the Coast Guard video above.
