40 Haitian Refugees Feared Dead
The Coast Guard suspended its search Sunday for up to 38 Haitians missing since two boats that apparently were smuggling them to the United States sank off the South Florida coast.
"We searched right up until midnight without results," said Lt. John Pierce. "At this point, they're presumed dead."
The search was called off Sunday, shortly after midnight, 20 hours after crew members on a passing freighter reported to the Coast Guard that they heard screams from the water about 30 miles east of West Palm Beach.
The boats were carrying as many as 43 Haitians, but rescuers found only three survivors.
The three men rescued in the choppy Atlantic waters off West Palm Beach told U.S. Border Patrol officers that one boat carrying 18 Haitians broke down and that the other boat -- carrying between 18 to 25 more people -- approached it to help. Both boats then went under, the survivors said.
A Coast Guard cutter recovered the bodies of two men and crew members saw two other men's bodies sink below the surface.
"It's a lot of people," Coast Guard spokesman Lt. Ron LaBrec said.
A helicopter located the first survivor at 5 a.m. Saturday and took him to a medical center in West Palm Beach, where he was in stable condition hours later. Two other men were rescued at 8:30 a.m., clinging to a barrel. They were taken to the Border Patrol office in West Palm Beach, said Art Bullock, a U.S. Border Patrol officer in West Palm Beach.
None of the men was wearing life jackets and it was believed they were trying to sneak into the country, officials said.
"Generally, that many people don't get on a boat to cross in the middle of the night," said Petty Officer Jeff Hall. "From what we've seen in the past, they generally leave from the west end of the Bahamas and come across into West Palm Beach."
Two Coast Guard cutters and 12 planes from both the Coast Guard and the Air Force were involved in the search, which covered 2,600 square miles, according to a Coast Guard statement.
The two vessels that sank, a 17-foot boat and a 20-foot boat, apparently took to sea from the Bahamas, said Samedi Florvil, with the Haitian Refugee Center in Miami.
"In the Bahamas, (smugglers) tell them it is easy over here," he said. "Some of them pay $2,000 or 3,000 to get on a boat."
The numbers of Haitians and Cubans taking to the seas rose in 1998, and authorities say they expect the trend to continue in 1999. In 1998, Coast Guard vessels intercepted 1,025 Cubans and 1,206 Haitians at sea, compared with 406 Cubans and 587 Haitians in 1997.
On Dec. 17, a 29-foot boat capsized in 6-foot high seas off Elliott Key, some 22 miles south of Miami. Nine Cubans drowned and another five were lost at sea and presumed dead. Two of the nine survivors are charged with smuggling the others.
"It just reiterates the danger that's involved in smuggling migrantto the United States," LaBrec said. "These people leave in small boats that are generally unseaworthy, overcrowded and lacking in even the most basic safety gear."
Haitians who pay smugglers to take them to the United States know the risk they are taking, said Fernand Phillip, vice president of the board of Miami's Haitian Refugee Center.
"They are aware of the danger, but they are dying where they are," Phillip said. "They're just looking to survive."
Written by Rachel La Corte
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