Five people are dead in another migrant boat incident, this one near Puerto Rico
Five people died Thursday when a migrant-smuggling boat’s passengers were left to swim to the shores of one of Puerto Rico’s uninhabited islands, according to authorities.
Officials received initial reports that a vessel had capsized off Isla de Mona, a tiny nature reserve between Puerto Rico and the island of Hispaniola, shared by the Dominican Republic and Haiti. However, the U.S. Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico later confirmed to the Miami Herald that the boat had dashed and that passengers had to reach the land from the water.
“They were left at the mercy of their ability to reach shore,” said Ricardo Castrodad, a Coast Guard spokesman in San Juan.
Park rangers from the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources recovered at least five bodies, the agency told the Herald. Sixty-six others — 41 men and 25 women — were rescued. Two minors who survived were also among the passengers.
Efforts as of Thursday afternoon focused on tending to the survivors and transporting them and the dead to mainland Puerto Rico. A Customs and Border Patrol spokesman said the survivors are likely Haitian, Dominican, or both. An official identification of nationalities is still pending.
The tragic incident comes less than a week after a boat carrying Haitian migrants overturned in the Bahamas, killing at least 17 people. A migrant vessel capsizing near Puerto Rico in May killed 11 Haitian women, who were buried last month in a San Juan cemetery.
Authorities in Puerto Rico have seen a spike in undocumented immigrants trying to reach the territory’s shores over the last year, mainly from the Dominican Republic and Haiti. They cross the Mona Passage, the strait between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, on boats called “yolas” made out of wood and whatever materials are at hand.
Customs and Border Protection in Puerto Rico has detained 843 Haitians
and 353 Dominicans since October, according to government data from last month. Meanwhile, the Coast Guard had intercepted 1,414 Dominicans and 404 Haitians at sea between October 1 and June 30.
Smugglers routinely abandon undocumented immigrants on Isla de Mona, to then be found by park rangers or the Coast
Guard and CBP crews that patrol the treacherous waters between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. There is a state park ranger outpost on the island, but no basic infrastructure or permanent population.
“Smugglers are there to make a profit, and they are not concerned about your well-being,” Castrodad said.
Castrodad said one of
the most dangerous moments of an illegal migrant voyage is when the boats are nearing shore. Ocean conditions, the desperation of the passengers and the pressure from smugglers to disembark without getting caught can all become deadly factors.
“The immigrant does not realize the danger they are in. They tell them to get out of there and to the shore but they do not know the current, the depth,” he said, “in the last mile we have had many cases where there has been loss of life.”
The Coast Guard’s San Juan control center received reports at about 8:36 a.m. from U.S. Customs and Border Protection that Puerto Rico park rangers on Isla de Mona had spotted suspected migrants on the western coast of the island. Coast Guard boats and helicopters responded to Thursday’s incident, as did the Puerto Rico Police Department and U.S. Customs and Border Protection.
The latest incident in Puerto Rico spotlights the concerns U.S. authorities have about such voyages, where boats are not only at risk of capsizing but unscrupulous boat operators make migrants jump into the ocean to evade detection by authorities.
The first documented case of Haitian refugees being dumped into the ocean to die occurred on Aug. 13, 1979, off Palm Beach County and involved a 28-foot cabin cruiser coming from the Bahamas. Among the victims were Eliane Lorfils and her five small children. They were each grabbed by the captain and one by one tossed over the side of the boat to their deaths.