After five days adrift in a boat, without food or water, 18 people were rescued Wednesday near the US-Mexico border, the Coast Guard reported.
Rescue teams received a distress call at 4 p.m. alerting to a small motor boat full of people adrift in international waters about 16 nautical miles off the coast of San Diego, California.
He sent a Jayhawk helicopter to the rescue and was able to get four women, a man and two young children, ages 2 and 4, off the boat, local station 10 News San Diego reports.
Three of those people have been taken to local hospitals and nothing is known about their condition, but all are expected to survive.
Eleven other men were left on the boat and were later rescued by a Mexican Navy ship.
The group was left adrift presumably due to a failure in the engine of the boat, 20 feet in length, according to what a San Diego official told the local FOX 5 station. miles from the Mexican coast of Ensenada.
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The occupants, who are presumed to be all migrants, have told the authorities that they had been without food or water for five days, without having any option to ask for help.
Although water had entered the boat, they said, it was not enough to sink it.
“#Hypothermia CAN occur when the water temperature is below 70°Fahrenheit.
During today's rescue, air and sea temperatures were near 60°F.
Please do not venture into the sea," the Coast Guard tweeted.
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Its spokesman, Adam Stanton, told local station NBC News 7 that the sea conditions were brutal: it was rough and icy waves were pouring over the ship.
Rescuers were surprised the boat was still afloat considering it had a dead engine and was overloaded with passengers, he said.
All its occupants were wearing life jackets at the time of the rescue, he said.
Now the Coast Guard is working with Customs and Border Protection to decide their final destination.
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Every week, coastal authorities rescue migrants trying to reach the United States by sea, either from Mexico or from Cuba and Haiti, despite the risky conditions of the journey.
Last Monday they intercepted 22 migrants, including several children, who were traveling in an "overloaded" sailboat with waves of up to nine feet near the Florida Keys.
[At least 5 dead after collision of migrant boat heading to the US with the Cuban Coast Guard]
A few hours earlier, at least four of the 15 migrants who were trying to reach the Florida coast in another boat drowned when they capsized, according to the Coast Guard.
The federal agency did not give details of the origin of the migrants, who are mostly Cuban or Haitian.
Since last October 1, when the fiscal year began, the Coast Guard has intercepted 395 Haitian immigrants and some 5,392 Cubans at sea.
