Coast Guard Rescues 40 as Boat Capsizes Off Puerto Rico

By Roy J. Miles

The U.S. Coast Guard pulled at least 40 people from open water west of Puerto Rico on Monday after an overloaded boat capsized near Mona Island, and crews were still searching into the evening for others who remain missing. Two people were found dead. Survivors told rescuers that roughly 60 people were on board. If that estimate holds, about 18 people are still unaccounted for, though the Coast Guard has not released a final tally and said rescue efforts were continuing Monday night. According to the agency, the makeshift vessel capsized late Sunday after a fight aboard left several people badly hurt with a machete. Passengers then jumped into the sea without life vests. Survivors spent more than 12 hours in the water before a boat passing near Mona Island spotted them around noon on Monday and radioed for help. That vessel's crew helped bring four people to safety right away, and the Coast Guard's response widened from there. Officials have not said where the passengers came from. A Coast Guard spokesperson told reporters she did not have that information. The agency also has not explained what set off the violence on board, and it has not said how many of the injured survivors needed medical treatment. Mona Island is an uninhabited nature reserve that sits in the Mona Passage, the rough channel between Puerto Rico and Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic. For years, people fleeing poverty and violence have tried to cross it in crowded, homemade boats, and the crossing has repeatedly turned deadly. This latest emergency echoes earlier tragedies. In May 2022, at least 11 people died and 31 were rescued after a boat carrying Haitian migrants overturned north of Desecheo Island, another uninhabited spot off Puerto Rico's west coast. A month later, 11 Haitian girls and women were buried in Puerto Rico after a grossly overloaded boat capsized in open water northwest of the island. Federal figures from that period showed hundreds of Haitians and Dominicans being detained in waters around Puerto Rico over just six months. The pressure driving those journeys has not eased. Gang violence has displaced a record 1.5 million people across Haiti, and United Nations statistics show more than 3,050 people were reported killed from January through June. Armed groups are believed to control about 70 percent of Port-au-Prince as well as large areas of the country's central region. The trend reaches beyond Puerto Rico's waters. Last week, police in the Turks and Caicos Islands detained a makeshift boat carrying 60 Haitian migrants, and in June another 240 people from Haiti were detained near the archipelago. The Coast Guard has not linked Monday's capsizing to Haiti or to any specific group of travelers. For now, attention stays on the search zone west of the island, where every hour lowers the odds for anyone still in the water. The Coast Guard is expected to update the number of survivors, the dead and the missing as crews finish their work. Those figures may change, and this story will be updated as official information is released.