40 people killed in migrant boat fire off Haiti’s coast, says aid agency

At least 40 people have died after the boat they were traveling in caught fire off the coast of Haiti earlier this week, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported on Friday, citing local authorities.

The vessel left Haiti on Wednesday carrying over 80 migrants, and was headed to Turks and Caicos, the IOM said. Forty-one survivors were rescued by Haiti’s Coast Guard, it also said.

In a statement, Grégoire Goodstein, IOM’s chief of mission in the country, blamed the tragedy on Haiti’s spiraling security crisis and the lack of “safe and legal pathways for migration.”

“Haiti’s socio-economic situation is in agony. The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more,” he said.

Haiti is grappling with gang violence, a collapsing health system, and a lack of access to essential supplies, leading many Haitians to embark on dangerous journeys out of the country.

The Caribbean nation’s crisis escalated earlier this year when gang warfare exploded, forcing the resignation of the then-government. The number of migration attempts by boat from Haiti have risen since then, according to IOM data.

But chaos in the country has not stopped neighboring governments from repatriating Haitian migrants by the tens of thousands.

“More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year. In March, despite a surge in violence and the closure of airports throughout the country, forced returns increased by 46 per cent, reaching 13,000 forced returns in March alone,” the agency said in its statement.

In recent weeks, the appointment of new Prime Minister Garry Conille and the arrival of several hundred foreign forces to bolster Haiti’s National Police have offered new hope for addressing the crisis. The United Nations Security Council-backed Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission, led by Kenya, is now beginning operations in Haitian capital Port-au-Prince.