The Miami Coast Guard reported Wednesday the discovery of a body during the rescue efforts of the 39 missing immigrants when their boat capsized off the Florida coast, but has little hope of finding survivors.
Capt. Jo-Ann F. Burdian told a news conference that rescuing the other migrants alive is her top priority.
[Caribbean Coyotes: The disappearance of five migrants reveals the boom and the nightmare of reaching the United States by sea]
"The situation is serious, the longer they remain in the water, exposed to the marine environment... with each passing moment it becomes much more
serious and more unlikely to find survivors,"
he said, adding that they had no life jackets, water or food. .
The Department of Homeland Security is investigating what happened as a human trafficking incident "on a frequent route" for coyotes between the Bahamas and the United States.
The Coast Guard reported Tuesday the rescue of a man off the Florida coast who was found on top of a boat that capsized in a storm.
The survivor said he was traveling with 39 other people
who had left Bimini Island in the Bahamas on Saturday night and were headed to the United States.
Coast Guard searches for nine Cuban immigrants missing in shipwreck
July 8, 202100:38
The man told authorities the boat capsized due to bad weather and
none of the occupants were wearing life jackets.
[Report four dead after the shipwreck of a boat that transported migrants in Colombia]
The Bahamas have long been used as a staging point for migrant smuggling operations to the United States.
Generally, they try to take advantage of periods of good weather to cross, but the weather tends to change suddenly and
often the boats sail overloaded and are prone to capsizing
.
Thousands of deaths have been recorded in this way over the years.
In May of last year, a dozen migrants from Cuba were presumed dead after they disappeared when they were shipwrecked off the coast of Florida.
The bodies of two other migrants who were traveling on that boat were recovered and eight more were found alive.
Two months later, another boat capsized off Key West, Florida.
Although 13 Cubans were rescued on that occasion, nine disappeared in the water.