The Bahamian Navy reported that it had intercepted the day before, west of the Exuma chain of islands (between the Bahamas archipelago and Cuba), a boat about 40 feet (13 meters) that smuggled 76 Haitian migrants.
This is the second group of migrants from Haiti to be intercepted at sea by the Royal Defense Force of the Bahamas (RBDF) in the past two weeks.
The RBDF specified that the migrants were handed over to the migration authorities for possible repatriation.
Recall that on Christmas Eve the Navy of the Bahamas had intercepted 87 other Haitians in an irregular situation as they traveled clandestinely in a boat near the island of Inagua, the southernmost region of the Bahamas and the closest to the north coast of Haiti.
Hundreds of Haitians risk their lives by traveling in fragile and overloaded boats to the Bahamas in search of work, although the authorities of the archipelago have warned that they will expel all foreigners who do not have a residence permit as of January 1, 2018.
According to estimates by the International Organization for Migration, there were nearly 70,000 Haitians in the Bahamas in 2014, including about 50,000 did not have a residence permit.
SOURCE: Haiti Libre
