Searchers have recovered the bodies of 11 Haitians who died in the sinking of a small, overcrowded boat off the Bahamas, and 12 others are missing, US and Bahamian authorities said Tuesday.
Several children were among the dead and missing from the sinking, said Loretta Mackey, a spokeswoman for the The Royal Bahamas Police in Freeport, Grand Bahama told AFP.
Mackey said five people survived the sinking of the 26-foot (7.5-meter) boat, which was crowded with 28 people when it left Haiti.
“We don’t know when this boat left Haiti, the survivors told us that the capsizing of their boat happened on Sunday, three or four hours off the island of Abaco in the northern Bahamas,” she said.
A US Coast Guard spokesman earlier said the boat broke up off Hawksbill Cay in the Bahamas on its way to the United States.
Survivors who managed to swim to shore reported the sinking to Bahamian police, who alerted the US Coast Guard on Monday, said Coast Guard Petty Officer Jon-Paul Rios.
Rios and Mackey both said the bodies of 13 people had been recovered in search operations that were still ongoing on Tuesday.
“We can confirm that five Haitian migrants survived when their boat capsized in rough seas,” said Mackey. “Bahamas’ authorities have recovered 11 bodies and 12 remain missing. Among the missing people and the bodies are several children.”
“The migrants were apparently heading to Florida when their engine failed, but we don’t have more details,” she said. “The survivors were being detained by the police in Bahamas Tuesday for questioning.”
Overcrowded boats of migrants regularly try to make it to the coast of Florida from poor countries in the Caribbean like Haiti and Cuba.
Haiti, which suffered a catastrophic 2010 earthquake that flattened the capital and killed more than 200,000 people, is the poorest country in the Americas.
11 Haitians die, 12 missing in boat sinking
