Search for survivors continues after migrant boat capsizes near Puerto Rico, leaving 11 dead
Federal and state authorities in Puerto Rico continued searching for survivors Friday morning after a boat carrying Haitian migrants capsized near the U.S. territory s western coast the day before, leaving 11 women dead.
We continue to search in hopes of finding more survivors, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Ricardo Castrodad told the Miami Herald.
Thirty-eight survivors have been found so far. Nearly all are Haitian, but there were two Dominican nationals among those found in the water.
Eight Haitians were taken to a hospital in the northwestern town of Aguadilla and the bodies of the dead were sent to the Puerto Rico Forensic Sciences Institute.
MarÌa Conte Miller, the director of the institute, confirmed in a press release Friday morning that DNA samples will be taken to confirm their identities.
We established communication with the Consulate of the Dominican Republic in Puerto Rico in an effort to locate the families of the deceased, she said.
A U.S. Customs and Border Protection aircraft noticed the capsized vessel and over 20 people in the water near noon Thursday about 11 miles from Desecheo Island, a wildlife refuge in the Mona Passage, the stretch of water between Puerto Rico and the island of Hispaniola. Most of the passengers appeared to not be wearing life jackets.
The search continued 24 hours later, with Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Puerto Rico Police Department working together. The Coast Guard also dispatched a plane and reinforcements from Clearwater, Florida.
Customs is interviewing survivors to figure how many people were on the boat before it overturned.
Illegal voyages to Puerto Rico across the Mona Passage are often conducted on dangerous, overloaded makeshift vessels. A sudden shift in weight, dangerous weather and ocean conditions, a broken-down engine and other factors can quickly turn one of the journeys deadly.