Welcome to Ghana Pundit: The Home of Politics and Intelligent Analysis

LATEST:

Grab the widget  Tech Dreams

Insist on Your Right to Education

Uneducated citizenry is like a pitch any game can be played on it. Illiteracy is what has given the politicians in Ghana the chance to fool so many people for so a long a time.

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Dozens missing after Haitian boat capsized

Planes, boats search for 67 missing Haitians

(CNN) -- The search continued Tuesday for as many as 67 people missing after a boat carrying about 200 Haitians capsized, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted this crowded boat last week and repatriated its occupants to Haiti.

The U.S. Coast Guard intercepted this crowded boat last week and repatriated its occupants to Haiti.

Click to view previous image
1 of 2
Click to view next image

The boat overturned Monday off Turks and Caicos, a British territory about 550 miles southeast of Miami, Florida.

Searchers aboard boats and aircraft have rescued 118 passengers and found 15 bodies, said Petty Officer Jennifer Johnson, a Coast Guard spokeswoman, on Tuesday morning.

The Coast Guard described the boat's occupants as migrants from Haiti. The overcrowded vessel was believed to have set sail from the Haitian port of Cap Haitien, the Turks and Caicos Sun newspaper reported.

The search resumed at dawn Tuesday after being suspended because of darkness Monday night, Johnson said.

The Coast Guard is contributing one boat, the 210-foot cutter Valiant, and three aircraft to the search, Johnson said. The aircraft are a Falcon jet out of Miami, an HH-60 helicopter and a slow-flying C-130 cargo plane out of Clearwater, Florida. Video Watch Coast Guard rescue Haitians after boat capsizes »

"If the weather and conditions are right, [the C-130] can fly really low," Johnson said. "It makes a fantastic search aircraft."

Turks and Caicos authorities are using small boats in the search, she said.

About 70 people were plucked Monday from a reef near the island group, authorities said. Four other bodies were found, though it was unclear which authorities located them.

A nurse at Myrtle Rigby Hospital in the Turks and Caicos said that about 70 people were brought there, including four who had died.

Five people were admitted to the hospital, and the others had minor injuries, the nurse said.

advertisement

The Coast Guard said it intercepted another "grossly overloaded" boat, with 124 Haitians aboard, late last week in the same region. Those migrants were returned to Cap Haitien on Monday.

Overloaded vessels can quickly lose stability and capsize, sending migrants into the water, a Coast Guard release said

No comments:

Ghana Pundit Headline News

E-mail subscription

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Pan Africa News

Graphic Ghana

MYJOYONLINE.COM

Peacefm Online - News with a vision

The Times - World News

The Times - Africa News

Pambazuka News :Emerging powers in Africa Watch

AfricaNews - RSS News

The Zimbabwe Telegraph

BBC News | Africa | World Edition

Modern Ghana

My Blog List

R.I.P.

R.I.P.

AfriGator

AfrigatorAfrigator