May 14, 2009 11:09 pm US/Eastern
Search For Missing Migrants Suspended
27 Hundred Miles Searched
Nine People Confirmed Dead, 16 Survivors
FORT LAUDERDALE (CBS4) ―
The United States Coast Guard announced Thursday evening they suspended their search for missing migrants after their boat capsized off the coast of Boynton Beach on Wednesday.
The Coast Guard, along with other law enforcement agencies and a Good Samaritan boater, rescued 16 people and recovered 9 bodies from a possible illegal smuggling operation.
Nine people have been confirmed dead; six women, two men and a one year old girl.
Of the sixteen survivors, ten men and a woman were being detained on a Coast Guard cutter at sea. The remaining five individuals, three women, one man and young boy, were taken to area hospitals Wednesday. Thursday morning the Coast Guard announced that they had released custody of the individuals who had been hospitalized to immigration and customs officials.
"Our thoughts are with each of the lost, the survivors and their loves ones," said Rear Adm. Steve Branham, Seventh Coast Guard District commander, in an emailed statement. "The Coast Guard and our local, state and federal partners remain committed to protecting life at sea and our nation's maritime borders. We will continue to aggressively patrol for migrants at sea and rescue them when they are in peril."
The Coast Guard searched more than 8,800 square miles for about 31 hours. The search area spanned from Boynton Beach to about 28 miles southeast of Port Canaveral, Fla.
Coast Guard officials said they did not find the boat, which one of migrants described as being white with a center console and twin engines.
The Coast Guard said they received a call around 12:30 p.m. Wednesday afternoon from a boater who said he had pulled three people from the water.
James Weber, a diver with Palm Beach Fire Rescue, was out doing exercises when the call came in. He helped recover a couple of survivors. "Their initial reaction was 'Oh God, oh God! Thank God, you guys saved us!' That was the words that came out of their mouths," he described.
The survivors said their boat had been carrying about 29 people, including women and children. Many had been in the water for from ten to twelve hours; only eight recovered had life jackets.
Wednesday evening Coast Guard members loaded the bodies of eight of the deceased onto Palm Beach County Fire Rescue stretchers at Phil Foster Park in Riviera Beach.
Worried family members waited for hours Thursday on the whereabouts of their loved ones. But the answers never came.
Gens Flermont is among those living in agony. Flermont said he got a phone call on Wednesday from someone saying that his 26-year-old son Elson was on board the doomed boat.
"I haven't been able to eat or drink," he told
CBS4 News.
He says Elson ran a business fixing motor bikes in Haiti. "I thought he was living the good life. He wasn't supposed to do something like this.
Fitton said most of the people appeared to be of Haitian descent.
Gurlene Desir lives in the Bahamas and told
CBS4's Carey Codd in a phone conversation that her twin 19-year-old daughters paid $3,000 apiece for seats on the ill-fated boat.
Desir said her daughters could no longer live in the impoverished Haiti.
"Haiti no good," Desir said in broken English. "No job. No food. No security. Nothing. They look for a better life."
Desir said her daughters planned to rendezvous with family in Miami and begin that better life. Now, Desir is waiting for word on whether her daughters are alive or dead.
Immigrant advocate Cheryl Little said these deaths once again spotlight the lengths people will take to reach American shores.
"People should not embark on these treacherous voyages," Little told
CBS4's Carey Codd. "They are taking their lives in their hands."
Some of immigrants being detained on Coast Guard cutter told customs investigators that they left from Bimini, in the Bahamas, on a trip to South Florida. Investigators are working to determine if this was an ill-fated smuggling attempt. Fitton said the focus would remain on finding and recovering victims before looking at legal issues.
"It's a tragedy," Fitton said. "If this was a smuggling operation and somebody would be so callous with human life, it astounds us."
"The criminal investigation will be handled by ICE and CBP, not by the Coast Guard," said Coast Guard Captain James Fitton.
Wednesday afternoon a pair of Coast Guard helicopters, a jet and three boats were involved in the search and rescue operation, as well as a few "Good Samaritan" boats. One of the helicopters and two small boats continued the search through the night.
Since October 2008, the Coast Guard has stopped nearly 14 hundred Haitians from trying to enter the U.S.
Haitian activist Bob Jeune fears there will be more casualties because of the desperate situation in Haiti. "There is no food and no jobs." He's urging the Federal Government to grant temporary citizenship papers to the 30-thousand Haitians living in South Florida.
The Palm Beach County Medical Examiner's Office confirmed to
CBS4 that they completed autopsies on 9 victims Thursday. However, the causes of deaths are not being released. The ME's office said they are working to identify the victims and notify family members. If a body is not claimed within 30 days it will be given a county burial.
CBS4's Marybel Rodriguez and Joan Murray contributed to this report.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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