Migrants 'towed out to sea'
10/05/2007 22:49  - (SA)  

Boat disaster hits Haiti Haiti the world's most corrupt US catches 500 Haitians at sea Haitians not welcome in US

Cap-Haitien - Survivors of a capsizing incident that killed at least 61 Haitian migrants said on Thursday that crew aboard a Turks and Caicos patrol boat had towed them into deeper water and abandoned them after their vessel overturned.

"They just left us out there," said Dona Daniel, 23, one of a half-dozen survivors after being repatriated to Haiti from the nearby British territory. The other Haitians corroborated Daniel's account of the tragedy.

They said their sailboat, loaded with an estimated 160 people, was minutes away from shore on one of the Turks and Caicos islands when the patrol boat rammed them, towed the migrant boat away from land and then refused to take the migrants on board after their vessel capsized.

Lovderson Nacon, 19, said many of the migrants didn't know how to swim and were screaming in the darkness, "God help me!"

Run over by boat

Migrants interviewed said people who desperately tried to pull themselves aboard the Turks and Caicos patrol boat were beaten back with wooden batons.

Nacon said some migrants were run over by the patrol boat after the migrants were flung into the shark-infested waters.

He said he was in the water for more than 15 minutes before a smaller Turks and Caicos patrol boat came out to pull survivors from the water.

Other migrants said they were in the water for more than 40 minutes as they waited for the rescue boat to make a return trip.

"They heard us screaming so much, they finally came and helped us," Nacon said. "The people who knew how to swim lived, the people who didn't drowned."

The Turks and Caicos government will not comment on the capsizing until two investigations are completed, said Ben Boddy, an official with the governor's office.

Greeted by weeping relatives

Britain's Foreign Office also declined to comment pending the investigations.

The migrants, wearing maroon T-shirts and athletic pants, were flown back to Haiti on Thursday and taken by school bus to a gymnasium where about 100 relatives, many weeping, greeted them.

The relatives called out their loved ones' names, not sure if they had survived the worst disaster to hit Haitian migrants in years.

What is this?    Yahoo    Digg  Del.icio.us  Facebook Brought to you by OUTsurance Car Insurance News24 on mobile News24 on facebook profile