The US Coast Guard suspects a “human smuggling” operation.
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A search was launched on Tuesday, January 25, to find 39 people missing after the capsize on Saturday of their boat, suspected of transporting migrants off the coast of Florida. According to the US Coast Guard, the boat, which set out from the Bimini Islands in the Bahamas, capsized about 70 km east of the Fort Pierce Inlet park due to bad weather. They suspect an operation “human trafficking”.
The alert was given around 8 a.m. Tuesday by a sailor who picked up one of the passengers who had managed to cling to the boat. According to this survivor, the boat was carrying 39 other people and none of the passengers were wearing life jackets. An image released by the coast guard showed the man sitting on the hull of an upturned boat. Several ships and planes were involved in the search.
The Bahamas, an archipelago of 700 islets (including 39 inhabited) located 80 km southeast of the coast of Florida, close to Jamaica, Cuba and Haiti, are regularly used as a land of transit by migrants seeking to reach the United States, and as a starting point for a dangerous crossing by Haitians living in the archipelago.