PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – Survivors of the worst disaster to hit Haitian migrants in years are “angry and revolted” that a Turks and Caicos police vessel rammed their crowded boat twice before it capsized, killing dozens in shark-infested waters, a senior official said Wednesday.
The shocking allegation against the Turks and Caicos boat didn’t come out until this week because the 78 survivors of the disaster have been locked in a jaillike detention center and barred from speaking to journalists.
Officials say about 160 migrants were jammed onto a rickety sailboat that capsized before dawn last Friday, spilling most of them into the Atlantic Ocean a half-mile off one of the islands in the Turks and Caicos, 125 miles north of Haiti.
“They’re very angry and revolted by what happened, because this is a problem that we still can’t clarify up until now,” Jeanne Bernard Pierre, director-general of Haiti’s National Migration Office, said from the Turks and Caicos, where she met with the detained survivors.
Leaders of the Turks and Caicos, a British Caribbean territory, will not comment on the migrants’ allegations until two investigations into the incident are completed, said Ben Boddy, an official with the governor’s office.
One probe is being conducted by the local government, and three government experts from Britain are carrying out an independent investigation, said David Stewart, spokesman in London for the Marine Accident Investigation Branch.
Turks and Caicos Gov. Richard Tauwhare said Tuesday the sailboat capsized while it was being towed by a police boat in rough seas, contradicting earlier claims by local officials that police did not arrive on the scene until after the migrant boat capsized.
Pierre said she had seen no evidence of a cover-up, but added: “It’s too early to say that we’re satisfied with the (progress of the) investigation.”
She said the Haitian government would consider the ramming of a migrant boat to be a “criminal” act.
The known death toll rose to 61 after dozens more bodies were found floating in the ocean, some partially eaten by sharks. More than a dozen migrants remained missing and presumed dead.
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