More than 150 migrants on an overloaded sailboat grounded off Miami-Dade, Coast Guard says

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Updated July 21, 2022 5:47 PM

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The Coast Guard and other agencies responded to a large migrant event off South Florida Thursday, July 21, 2022. A sailboat packed with more than 150 people grounded off Boca Chita Key, the Coast Guard said. U.S. Coast Guard

An overloaded sailboat carrying more than 150 migrants was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard and other agencies Thursday morning off Boca Chita Key, a small Upper Florida Keys island located in South Miami-Dade County. 

By late afternoon, the Coast Guard said in a statement that it had begun loading the people onto cutters to be returned to their “country of origin,” which is believed to be Haiti.

Petty Officer Nicole Groll, Coast Guard District 7 spokeswoman, said that after the boat grounded off Boca Chita, situated within Biscayne National Park, all of its passengers remained on the vessel. 

“Everyone is on the boat. No one is in the water,” Groll told the Miami Herald.

The Coast Guard would not confirm by Thursday afternoon that the people are from Haiti, but their vessel is almost identical to the several wooden sailing freighters Haitian migrants have been using to reach South Florida since November. 

Several regional agencies responded, including Miami-Dade County police and fire rescue, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, Groll said. 

Miami-Dade Fire Rescue medics took at least five people from the boat to local hospitals, Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan Estrada, another spokesman for the service, said. That number includes three adults and two children, Estrada said. Their conditions and reasons for needing hospitalization were not immediately clear. 

This is the first Haitian boat to have made it this far since March, when a group of around 130 people landed off Summerland Key in the Lower Florida Keys.

Others have tried to make it to the Keys but have been turned back off the coast of Haiti by the U.S. and Haitian coast guards. Since October, more than 6,100 Haitians have been stopped at sea trying to reach the United States, according to the Coast Guard. 

It’s the largest maritime exodus from Haiti in two decades. 

In May, a Florida-bound boat ferrying more than 800 Haitian migrants ran aground in Cuban waters after being forced to turn back due to engine trouble soon after entering U.S. territorial waters, according to the relative of one of the passengers on board.

The latest migrant arrival off the Florida Keys comes as the security situation in Haiti continues to spiral out of control. The United Nations last week expressed concerns about ongoing violence in the Cite Soleil slum in the capital by rival gangs. The violence, according to the U.N., has left at least 99 people dead and more than 130 people injured. 

It’s risky to go, but even riskier to stay: Why Haitians are fleeing in deadly voyages

Fueled by destitution and despair amid deepening political uncertainty, worsening gang violence and rampant hunger exacerbated by the assassination of President Moïse, Haitians are once more turning to the sea to reach South Florida. By Cette adresse e-mail est protégée contre les robots spammeurs. Vous devez activer le JavaScript pour la visualiser.

The bloody siege erupted earlier this month and left tens of thousands of people inside the slum of 300,000 trapped without food and water, and exacerbated fuel shortages and power outages in the country after gangs blocked entrance to the port.

Prior to expressing its concerns about the spiraling violence, the U.N. Security Council unanimously approved a resolution renewing the mandate of its U.N. political office in Haiti

The resolution called on countries such as the United States to stop the transfer of weapons and ammunition to the country where police have been outgunned by gangs, and recent videos show gangs executing people on film.

Since September, more than 24,000 Haitians have been quickly expelled after either crossing the U.S. southern border or being intercepted at sea.

More than 1,400 who came by boat have been processed into the U.S. after either making it to land or jumping into the water. 

Until now, Haitians caught at sea trying to get into the U.S. via the Florida Keys or the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico have been returned to Haiti, even if found in U.S. territorial waters.

Last July, after the assassination of Haitian President Jovenel Moïse and the freedom uprising in Cuba, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas warned Cubans and Haitians not to try and enter the United States illegally by sea. 

“Any migrant intercepted at sea, regardless of their nationality, will not be permitted to enter the United States,” Mayorkas said during a press conference.

Reaction from Miami’s Haitian community

Haitian community activist Marleine Bastien said she and her organization, Family Action Network Movement, are shocked, but not surprised, to see the overcrowded boat of dozens of Haitian brothers and sisters “trying to make it to the land of the free.”

“It is heartbroken to see them risking their lives to get here because their motherland is at war, with thousands fleeing their homes daily to escape the massacres, daily kidnappings, gang rapes and murder,” she said. “No one is protected, no one is safe with no fuel, no food, no access to medical care for the wounded.“

Bastien noted the decision to repatriate Haitians is happening as the State Department cautions U.S. citizens against traveling to Haiti because it is too dangerous.

“It is criminal and inhumane to deport these men, women and children who have gone through so much to get here. The Biden administration must respect their basic rights of due process and allow them to stay,” she added. “The State Department must quell the flow of heavy weapons to Haiti, help bring security, and open a dialogue with with the civil society and the leaders in the diaspora to find a solution to this crisis. The failed policies of the past will not work. It is time to heed the voices of the Haitian people and not those of the corrupt elite and de facto leaders.”

This story was originally published  July 21, 2022 11:34 AM.

David Goodhue covers the Florida Keys and South Florida for FLKeysNews.com and the Miami Herald. Before joining the Herald, he covered Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy in Washington, D.C. He is a graduate of the University of Delaware.

Haiti gang violence: Children take shelter in school

Reuters

Toddlers to teenagers are sleeping in classrooms at the prestigious Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague

Hundreds of children in Haiti are taking refuge at a high school in the capital Port-au-Prince after escaping gang violence that has claimed hundreds of lives this month.

Toddlers to teenagers are sleeping in classrooms at the prestigious Institution Saint-Louis de Gonzague.

A severe wave of violence erupted between two rival gangs in the Cité Soleil area on 7 July.

Around 300 people have reportedly been killed, Human Rights Watch says.

Children joked around in the playground on Friday, playing hide and seek or improvised football games with plastic bottles, Reuters reported from inside the school.

Reuters

Kids have been playing games as the violence continues outside the school grounds

But Sister Rosemiline, a nun with religious community group Kizito Family, said "the kids need a lot of help". 

"The situation is really bad where they are from. We are waiting for food but what we get is not satisfactory to the kids," she said, adding that she is hoping to relocate them.

A community organiser told Reuters that the children wore school uniforms to convince gang leaders they were on their way to class in order to escape the violence. 

Most of the children are alone as their parents were unable to flee the Cité Soleil turf war, he said.

Reuters

The children managed to escape the violent turf war, but many are without their parents

Battles between the G9 and G-Pèp gangs erupted on 7 July over control of the neighbourhood.

Human Rights Watch said on Friday that roughly 300 people have been killed, including 21 whose bodies were apparently burned, and 16 people have been reported missing, citing the National Human Rights Defence Network.

"The gangs also burned homes and used heavy machinery to demolish them, the group said, with 125 homes reportedly destroyed," it said. 

The situation has become so dire that earlier this week the UN Security Council voted unanimously to ban some weapon sales to Haiti.

Reuters

There have been protests over chronic fuel and electricity shortages

Gang violence has shot up since the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse by mercenaries a year ago.

According to the UN Integrated Office in Haiti, 540 people were kidnapped and more than 780 were killed between January and May 2022. In the last five months of last year, 396 people were kidnapped and 668 killed.

The country has also been hit by chronic fuel and electricity shortages because of the gang violence.

National Center of Haitian Apostolate via auth.ccsend.com 

23 juil. 2022

SEVENTEENTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME (July 24th, 2022)

Gn. 18, 20-32; Ps 138; Col 2, 12-14; Lk 11, 1-13.

 

https://youtu.be/I6jr0HUO3_8

 

 

PRAYER SUNDAY                              

 

Praying is quite a challenge to many. Today’s Scripture readings will dissipate our discomfort.

In the first place we are given an example in the person of Abraham who prayed God for the corrupt cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. Angels were on their way to destroy those sinful cities. Abraham in prayer begged for compassion if only fifty righteous men could be found in their midst. God agreed, but as no 50 righteous men could be found in those cities, Abraham persisted in his supplications. In response, God to please Abraham, agreed to bring down the numbers from 50 to 45 and then 40 and so on down to ten. Thus, God showed himself to be responsive to the prayers of his faithful servant. So will He be when we turn to Him in prayer. 

The Gospel further illustrates the same theme. First Jesus teaches us a model prayer “the Our Father” which we all know by heart. He then insists that we pray with persistence asking for a favor not simply once but many times. That lesson is conveyed by the parable of a hungry man who knocked at his neighbor’s door in the middle of the night asking for bread. The neighbor finally agreed to wake up and give the bread because of the persistent knockings on his door. 

At that point Jesus said “If you, who are not good, respond to your neighbor’s plea, how much faster will God who is good answer your prayers.” He then adds: “Ask and you’ll receive, seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.”  

Through these words and so many others, Jesus urges us to be prayerful people as we grow in the understanding that our God is a God of infinite mercy and love ever responsive to our pleas for help.

In Jesus, every human being can receive forgiveness. God our Father brought us to life along with him, having forgiven us all our transgressions.