MIAMI: rescue crew search for Florida Atlantic coastal waters on Tuesday for 39 people reported missing by survivors found attached to a boat that capsized in what the US Coast Guard called the alleged human smuggling attempt gone awry.
survivors told authorities after the rescue that he had left the Bahamas Bimini island, about 50 miles (80 km) east of Miami, in a boat with 39 others on Saturday night, the Coast Guard said in a statement posted on Twitter.
According to survivors, the boat capsized when the group hit bad weather about 45 miles (72.4 km) east of Fort Pierce Inlet, off the Atlantic coast of Florida between Miami and Cape Canaveral, but do not wear life jackets, Coast guard said.
A good Samaritan found him perched on the mostly submerged hull boat overturned on Tuesday morning and remove it before alerting the Coast Guard, which sent ships and planes cutter to look for an area stretching from Bimini to Fort Pierce Inlet for more victims.
The potential loss of life comes from “suspected human smuggling attempt,” the Coast Guard said in a statement.
Citizenship those on board have not been determined, a spokesman for the Coast Guard, Petty Officer Jose Hernandez, said.
It came on the heels of another ill-fated attempt migrants crossing that ended with 32 people rescued from a boat capsized last Friday, west of Bimini, which has been a frequent transit point for smuggling sea will, Hernandez said.
The incidence of inverted or interdicted vessel crowded with people, many of them citizens of Haiti or Cuba trying to reach the United States, which is not unusual in Florida waters.
In May 2021, 12 Cuban migrants were killed and eight were rescued after their boat capsized off Key West, Florida.
At least 557 Cuban migrants at all have been picked up at sea by the Coast Guard since October, in addition to nearly 7,400 Cubans interdicted over the previous five years, according to the agency.
Haitian migrant boat crossings have also grown more common as the Caribbean island nation deals with the economic and political crises, as well as kidnapping gang related.
The Coast Guard said it has intercepted 159 Haitians at least this fiscal year.
Last week, 90 people were repatriated to the Dominican Republic, which shares the island of Hispaniola with Haiti, following a ban of three rescue and illegal journey across the Mona Paragraph near Puerto Rico.