A search was underway Friday, January 28 to try to find survivors after a boat carrying more than 20 migrants capsized off Puerto Rico, the US Coast Guard said, days after a similar tragedy near from Florida.
Read also Capsizing of a migrant boat near Florida: five bodies found, search halted
The Coast Guard was notified around 01:00 (0500 GMT) of the presence of people in the water after the potential capsize of a boat carrying out "
an illegal operation of human smuggling to the island
", said a press release. .
The capsize occurred some 70 meters from Shacks Beach in the town of Isabela, in northwestern Puerto Rico.
A helicopter mobilized
According to a witness, many people managed to take refuge on the Caribbean island, which became American territory at the end of the 19th century before acquiring a special status of "
Associated Free State
" in the 1950s. arrested 12 of these migrants, whose nationality has not yet been determined, according to the coast guard. “
The first testimonies of the survivors mentioned 27 people on board the boat which capsized
”, they specified. "
Border Police are continuing to investigate to determine how many people were actually in the boat and how many made it to shore safe and sound
," they added.
Rescue teams flew over the accident area on Friday with a helicopter to search for possible survivors.
The US Coast Guard also stopped Thursday the "
active
" search for survivors after the capsizing off Florida of a boat on board which were forty migrants, five of whom were found.
The boat, which left the Bimini Islands in the Bahamas on Saturday evening, capsized shortly after departure;
the alert was given on Tuesday morning by a commercial ship that picked up one of the passengers, the only known survivor to date, who had managed to cling to the hull of the overturned boat.
