MIAMI — An incident involving a suspected migrant smuggling vessel left at least five people dead near an uninhabited island in Puerto Rico on Thursday, according to U.S. authorities.
“Our priority is to look for and rescue any possible survivor,” said Ricardo Castrodad, a Coast Guard spokesman in San Juan.
While authorities initially received reports that a vessel had capsized, what actually happened is not yet clear. The Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection also received information that the deaths occurred when the passengers were forced to jump from the boat and swim to shore.
Park rangers from the Puerto Rico Department of Natural and Environmental Resources reported recovering at least five bodies, according to the Coast Guard.
“How many there are or are left in the water, I can’t tell you,” said Castrodad.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection told the Miami Herald that most of the passengers are believed to be Haitian nationals.
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.
The Coast Guard’s San Juan control center received reports at about 8:36 a.m. from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection that Puerto Rico park rangers on Isla de Mona, a tiny nature reserve between the American territory and the island of Hispaniola, had spotted suspected migrants on the western coast of the island. Isla de Mona is a popular spot for smugglers to drop off undocumented migrants, particularly from the Dominican Republic and Haiti, looking to come into the United States.
At least two Coast Guard helicopters responded to Thursday’s incident, as well as two patrol boats. The Puerto Rico Police Department boats as well as U.S. Customs and Border Protection were also involved in the emergency response.
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.
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