15 dead, dozens missing after Haitian boat capsizes

July 29, 2009 at 12:00a.m.

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos (AP) — Rescuers searched by sea and air Tuesday for nearly 70 Haitians after an overloaded sailboat ran aground and capsized in the reef-studded waters off the Turks and Caicos Islands, killing at least 15 migrants.

The boat was carrying an estimated 200 people — men, women and teenagers — when it struck a reef near West Caicos, part of an archipelago that has proved to be deadly for Haitians fleeing the poverty of their homeland in rickety vessels.

Such perilous journeys have long been common throughout the world, but the number of migrants risking their lives to cross borders has declined amid increased enforcement in the United States and Europe and due to a global recession that has eliminated many unskilled jobs.

Minister of Public Safety Samuel Been and the U.S. Coast Guard said 15 people died and more than 100 were rescued, including some who were clinging to reefs or who swam two miles to shore.

Coast Guard boats, airplanes and a helicopter joined local authorities and volunteers in searching a 1,600-square-mile area, U.S. Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Jennifer Johnson. Any survivors in the water would be struggling with 23 mph winds and 6-foot seas.

“We hope that there are survivors and we can get them medical attention,” she said. “However, as time goes by, it becomes less and less likely because of exposure and fatigue.”

The Haitians had been at sea for three days when they spotted a police vessel and tried to hide, accidentally steering the boat onto a reef, survivor Alces Julien told The Associated Press.

“We saw police boats, and we tried to hide until they passed,” he said at a hospital where survivors were treated for dehydration. “We hit a reef, and the boat broke up.”

But Deputy Police Commissioner Hubert Hughes said officers were not pursuing the migrant vessel — which did not have a motor — and were involved only as rescuers.

“They were traveling in waters that are quite dangerous if you don’t know the area quite well,” he said.

Rescuers found survivors stranded on two reefs roughly two miles from West Caicos Island, said Lt. Cmdr. Matt Moorlag, a Coast Guard spokesman. Most were ferried to land by Turks and Caicos authorities in small boats.

Five survivors were found on West Caicos after apparently swimming ashore, Hughes said.

Johnson said the boat sank Monday afternoon, but Hughes said it might have been Sunday night. Turks and Caicos authorities reported the capsizing Monday to the Coast Guard, which patrols the region for drug traffickers and illegal migrants and often helps in search and rescue efforts.

Survivors told authorities the boat set out from northern Haiti with about 160 passengers, then stopped at an unknown location and picked up 40 others before sinking near the Turks and Caicos, an island chain between Haiti and the Bahamas, Johnson said. She said overloading appeared to be a factor.

“These vessels, they are grossly overloaded,” she said. “Two hundred people on a sailboat is astronomical.”

Nearly 60 of the survivors were being held at a two-story gymnasium serving as a makeshift detention center near the airport, surrounded by private security guards.

“The people are being taken care of,” said Donald Mettlus, an official from the Haitian Embassy who visited them. “They can walk. They are in good health.”

Haitian migrants captured in the region are normally returned to the northeastern city of Cap- Haitien. A Haitian official there said he was busy processing 124 migrants returned by U.S. authorities Monday and did not know when the survivors from Turks and Caicos might arrive.