A boat that left Bimini in the Bahamas on Tuesday night overloaded with around 30 people capsized at about 2 a.m. and sunk off the Florida coast, the incident was reported after 10 hours. The boat occupants were probably Haitians being smuggled to the U.S. Of the occupants 17 were rescued by Coast Guards, but 10 were dead including one child.
The ship’s sinking came as Haitian-American leaders met in Washington on Wednesday to lobby for temporary protective status, or TPS, for those from the country who make it to the U.S. It would be an emergency measure to keep people from being deported to their homeland so they can help their country recover following a natural disaster or major political upheaval. It has been granted to countries including El Salvador and Nicaragua but never to Haiti.
Since October, the Coast Guard had stopped 1,377 Haitians, up from 972 during the same seven-month period last year. Four tropical storms and hurricanes have caused deaths and destruction, thus increasing poverty and famine in several areas of Haiti.
Search for the missing was conducted through the night.
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