Coast Guard
60 migrants lost at sea en route from Bahamas to Florida, officials say
By
Miami Herald July 20, 2024
David Goodhue and Jacqueline Charles
Miami Herald July 20, 2024
The U.S. Coast Guard and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force announced Thursday, July 19, 2024, that a search for about 60 migrants who may have left Abaco on July 4 has been suspended. (U.S. Coast Guard)
MIAMI (Tribune News Service) — The search for about 60 migrants lost at sea who departed the Bahamas earlier this month for Florida has been called off, according to U.S. and Bahamian officials.
The announcement came late Thursday night from Homeland Security Task Force —Southeast.
Sharing a statement from the Royal Bahamas Defense Force, officials say the people may have left Abaco, in the northern Bahamas, on July 4, and were on their way to Fort Pierce when the boat’s crew reported engine troubles around 11 p.m. that day. The Abaco islands are a popular jumping off point for Haitian migrants seeking to get to the United States.
The timing and the departure point of the boat coincides with information circulating in the Haitian community about a missing up-and-coming Haitian rapper Wens Jonathan Desir, who goes by the stage name Mechans-T.
Luckson Saint-Vil, a Haitian journalist with Radio Television Caraibes looking into the rapper’s disappearance, said the artist had traveled to the Bahamas for a show when he was reportedly approached about joining a migrant voyage to the United States. He has not been seen since.
A July 16 letter from the Haitian Embassy in Nassau and obtained by the Miami Herald asked the Foreign Ministry of the Bahamas “for assistance in ascertaining the whereabouts” of Desir, who went missing in Abaco. He went to the Bahamas to perform at a May 18 Haitian Flag Day celebration on the island.
“He has not returned to Haiti and his whereabouts remain unknown since after the performance,” the letter said.
Neither Bahamian officials nor the U.S. Coast Guard have provided the nationalities of the missing migrants. Bahamian officials said in their statement Thursday that “acting on intelligence provided by the United States Coast Guard,” the search for the migrants has been suspended.
Both Coast Guard and Royal Bahamas Defense Force officials contacted by the Miami Herald said the nationalities of the people on the vessel was not known.
The Royal Bahamas Defense Force said the Coast Guard conducted two search-and-rescue flights on July 7-8 looking for the boat.
“Despite these extensive aerial searches, no sign of the vessel or its passengers were found,” the statement reads.
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