At least 40 people have been killed at sea after a boat carrying Haitian migrants caught fire, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Port-au-Prince said on Friday.
The boat, which was carrying more than 80 people, departed from Fort Saint-Michel in Haiti’s north and was headed for the Turks and Caicos Islands, the IOM said in a statement, citing the Caribbean nation’s migration authority.
Forty-one people survived the fire and were rescued by the Haitian coast guard. They are currently receiving care and support provided by the IOM, and 11 of them were taken to the nearest hospital, the statement said.
Passengers on the boat had used matches to light candles in a ritual to ask for safe passage, leading gasoline-filled drums to catch fire and explode, Jean-Henri Petit, who heads the civil protection office in northern Haiti, told the Miami Herald.
“This devastating event highlights the risks faced by children, women and men migrating through irregular routes,” IOM’s chief of mission in Haiti, Gregoire Goodstein, said in a statement.
Goodstein also stressed that the extreme gang-fueled violence in Haiti over the past many months had pushed Haitians “to resort to desperate measures” to flee the country.
Several hundred Kenyan police have arrived in Haiti over the course of July as part of the long-delayed mission mandated to help Haitian police fight armed gangs that have taken over most of capital, Port-au-Prince. The violence has fueled a humanitarian crisis that has driven nearly 600,000 people from their homes and 5 million people into severe food insecurity.
Source: theguardian.com
