US Coast Guard suspends search for 15 missing migrants
Friday, July 16, 2004
MIAMI, USA (AFP): The US Coast Guard (USCG)
said Thursday it suspended the search for 15 migrants missing since their boat
capsized off Puerto Rico's Desecheo Island earlier this week.
Before ending the search, the Coast Guard had rescued 14 of those aboard the
boat and recovered three bodies. It said the
29-foot fishing boat that capsized Monday fit the description of a boat stolen
from Bahia Beach in the Dominican Republic earlier that day.
"As a team we will continue to patrol these waters to interdict, rescue and
repatriate migrants at sea, but as long as long as people continue to ignore
the danger of these voyages we will be witnesses to more avoidable deaths,"
said Captain Douglas Rudolph, who commands the USCG's Greater Antilles
Section. Thirteen of the surviving migrants
were set to be repatriated to the Dominican Republic aboard a vessel also
loaded with humanitarian aid for the Caribbean nation that recently suffered
severe flooding. One of the migrants, who
swam ashore to Desecheo Island, remained in the custody of the US Border
Patrol, the USCG said in a statement. So far
this year, US Coast Guard vessels have picked up almost 4,800 Dominicans
trying to make their way into the United States illegally. The migrants are
almost invariably sent back to the Dominican Republic.
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