Five migrants are feared dead after their boat capsized on the way to Florida from the Bahamas in “a suspected failed smuggling venture,” officials said on Monday.
The U.S. Coast Guard said on Monday that it had suspended its search after covering 1,240 square miles over seven hours. Four people were rescued from a 25-foot vessel about 30 miles off Florida’s Atlantic Coast, near St. Lucie, on Sunday morning, according to the Coast Guard.
Martin County Fire Rescue said in a statement that four survivors and one deceased victim were pulled from the water just before 10 a.m. Sunday. The Martin County Sheriff’s Department and the Coast Guard counted nine total passengers, but did not report the deceased victim reported by fire rescue officials. When asked, the sheriff, John Budensiek, was not aware of the death.
One of the survivors was seriously injured and the others had injuries that were not life-threatening, fire rescue officials said.
Sheriff Budensiek said at a news conference on Monday that the four people rescued were of Dominican and Haitian descent. According to interviews with survivors, the boat quickly capsized in the early hours of Friday when it left the island of Bimini, Sheriff Budensiek said. The Coast Guard said the boat capsized early Saturday morning.
Many of the migrants were initially able to cling onto the boat but “lost their grip and one by one drifted out into the ocean,” he said.
Only four were still alive — one woman and three men, including a 17-year-old — once the sheriff’s office was called around 8 a.m. on Sunday to assist the Coast Guard and U.S. Customs and Border Protection with the rescue operation, Sheriff Budensiek said.
A fisherman who was out with his family on Sunday spotted the flipped vessel and was able to get close enough to give the migrants water, food and life jackets, the sheriff said. Because of rough sea conditions, his team needed over an hour to reach the boat. All four people who survived were transported to a hospital, where they were treated for water exposure and “serious sunburns,” Sheriff Budensiek said.
The chance of recovering the remaining missing people “is probably pretty dismal at this point,” he said. “We believe they’re in the Gulf Stream, so they’re moving rapidly to the north.”
“The decision to suspend a search is always difficult and never taken lightly,” Chief Warrant Officer Edgardo Insignares said in a Coast Guard statement. Smugglers “routinely exploit” vulnerable migrants for profit, he said, “while putting their lives at risk aboard overloaded and unseaworthy vessels.”
