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“What we know preliminarily is that they were transported in a single vessel,” the US Customs and Border Protection Office reported Tuesday
More than 100 Haitian migrants found on an uninhabited island near Puerto Rico
More than 92 Haitian migrants were found on an uninhabited island near Puerto Rico, reported this Tuesday the Office of Customs and Border Protection of the United States.
The agency’s spokesman, Jeffrey Quiñones, indicated that the group included 63 women, three of whom are pregnant, and 41 mens. The migrants were detected on Mona Island by park rangers from the Puerto Rico Department of Environment and Natural Resources. “What we know preliminarily is that they were transported in a single boat,” added Quiñones, quoted by Reuters.
For her part, Anaís Rodríguez, secretary of the Department of Natural Resources of Puerto Rico, specified that the authorities rescued 59 women, 38 men and five minors between five and 13 years. They were all in good health.
Quiñones pointed out that smugglers use Mona Island as a disembarkation point for boats departing from the Dominican Republic and tell migrants that they have arrived in Puerto Rican territory despite that the island is uninhabited. “Conditions in Mona are inhospitable,” Quiñones said. “Smugglers don’t care about the safety of the people they’re transporting. They basically pile them up in a boat,” she explained.
