Brazil says 19 migrants feared drowned off Bahamas

BRAS LIA: At least 19 Brazilian migrants are feared drowned off the Bahamas as they tried to cross illegally to the United States, officials in Brasilia said Monday.

The group went missing “during a purported crossing by sea from the Bahamas to the United States,” a foreign ministry statement said.

The migrants' families have not heard from them since Nov 6, the foreign ministry said.

“There are about 20 Brazilians (who have gone missing). So far, there is no information about their whereabouts, nor about the vessel that supposedly was going to take them to the United States,” the foreign ministry added.

Brazilian media reports said there were also dozens of other migrants aboard the boat, which officials suspect went down while attempting the roughly 80kilometer crossing between the Bahamas and the Florida coast.

The Brazilian embassy in Nassau, Bahamas and the Brazilian consulate in Miami, Florida, are in contact with family members and authorities to try to locate the missing persons, officials said.

The Brazilian foreign ministry said it was not ruling out the possibility that the migrants could be in prison or missing for other reasons.

But silence from everyone in such a large group, known to have been being trafficked into the US, raises many concerns.

Several Brazilian media outlets reported that family members of the missing migrants told them their kin paid thousands of dollars to 'coyotes,' people traffickers who smuggle them into the US.

The busiest such route was from Grand Bahama to the Palm Beach area of Florida; now it may include Bimini closer to Miami, or other Bahamian islands.

The sister of one of the Brazilians missing after allegedly traveling to the Bahamas told CBN radio station Globo that it was the third time he was trying to enter the US.

He was deported in 2013 after living illegally in the US for eight years, she was quoted as saying. This time “we do not know who took him.

“There are a number of people. One takes them to Belo Horizonte. Another takes them to Sao Paulo. And then another on to the Bahamas,” she was quoted as saying. — AFP