Search For 39 People Missing From Capsized Boat

Miami FL

26 January, 2022

3:51 PM

Description

A Miami Times Staff Report, the Miami Times Jan 25, 2022 The U.S. Coast Guard is searching for for 39 people missing for several days after a boat believed to be piloted by human smugglers capsized off Florida's coast en route from the Bahamas. The Coast Guard posted on Twitter Tuesday that a good Samaritan called the agency early Tuesday after rescuing a man clinging to the boat 45 miles east of Fort Pierce. The man said he was with a group that left the island of Bimini in the Bahamas on Saturday night and that the boat capsized in severe weather. No one was wearing life jackets. The Coast Guard is searching by both air and sea over a roughly 135-mile area extending from Bimini to the Fort Pierce Inlet. The agency patrols the waters around Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and the Bahamas, along routes often used by migrants trying to reach the U.S. The agency stops and repatriates foreigners found navigating in U.S. waters. On Friday, the Coast Guard found 88 Haitians in an overloaded sail freighter west of Great Inagua, Bahamas. Men, women and children escaping their Caribbean nations in search of a better life, frequently die trying to cross the Florida straights, miscalculating the rough seas in inadequate vessels. There is no word yet on the nationalities of those who are feared perished. The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.