Boat carrying Haitian migrants capsizes

SANTO DOMINGO, Dominican Republic -- Its mast blown off and captain dead, a boat loaded with more than 100 Haitian migrants struck a reef and capsized after drifting nearly a week, killing four passengers.

Officials said at least 16 were missing but authorities were investigating reports that many of them might have reached land and were hiding.

The boat, which set off from Haiti's northern Cap-Haitien city on April 8, tipped over late Monday about 200 yards off Punta Rusia in the northwest Dominican Republic, the Dominican navy said. The Haitians were hoping to reach the Turks and Caicos Islands.

A Dominican fisherman saw the 30-foot sloop crashed on the reef, tipped sideways and sinking, and ferried dozens of survivors to shore, U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Ryan Doss said by telephone from Miami.

The fisherman said he saw more than a dozen people wade ashore into mangroves, and Dominican officials said it's possible many are hiding for fear of being returned to Haiti.

A Dominican coast guard boat patrolling the area arrived early Tuesday to help in the rescue, as did a C-130 plane, two cutters and a helicopter from the U.S. Coast Guard.

Survivors said there were 111 people aboard when they hit the reef, said Jean-Baptiste Bien-Aime, Haiti's consul in the Dominican border town of Dajabon.

Ninety-one people were rescued and were being driven to the Haitian border Tuesday, he said.

Tragedy struck the voyage earlier when the captain and another man were knocked into the water when heavy winds snapped the boat mast last Wednesday, just one day into their voyage from the northern Haitian city of Cap-Haitien, survivors said. Those men are believed dead.

Survivors said they ran out of food and water the following day.

"We were lost, and the wind took us until we hit something, and we started sinking," said Henri-Claude Beausejour, 26, who was being treated for dehydration.

"God brought us here," he said, pointing skyward with an intravenous tube hanging from his arm.

He said he paid $220 for the voyage because "I want to go to whatever country will give me a job."

Haiti's "economic situation is deteriorating and driving people to risk their lives at sea," said the director of Haiti's national migration office in Port-au-Prince, Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine. "We warn them not to go, but their desperation is greater than their fear."

Thousands of Haitian migrants risk their lives each year to escape poverty and political turmoil by crowding into homemade boats and heading north. Many die at sea.

About 400 Haitians arrive monthly in Turks and Caicos.

There are about 8.3 million people in Haiti, while an estimated 2 million live abroad -- including 1 million in the United States, according to the Ministry of Haitians Living Overseas.