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Haitian deaths

Did they capsize or were they rammed?

Published May 21, 2007 9:27 PM

The agony of Haiti does not stop. There appears to be no limit to the indignities and cruelties that neighboring imperialist countries are willing to inflict on it.

The Turks and Caicos Islands, a small archipelago about 125 miles north of Haiti, is a British colony. On May 4, a small sailboat with 170 Haitians fleeing the grinding poverty in their homeland was a few minutes from landing there when a British patrol vessel rammed it and started towing it out to sea, according to the Haitian survivors.

A number of the passengers were knocked into the shark-invested waters. Sharks killed 54 and another 30 to 40 drowned.

Less than half—70 men and 9 women —survived.

According to a May 8 dispatch from the Haiti Press Service, the bodies that the sharks left and the survivors will be returned to Haiti. Bodies in an advanced state of putrefaction will be buried in Turks and Caicos.

The British administration claims to have opened an inquiry into this affair, but denied Haiti’s request to be included. Jacques Edouard Alexis, the prime minister of Haiti, has publicly expressed his disbelief over the preliminary story the British concocted.

Haitians living in the Fort Lauderdale area of Florida formed the Support Group for Refugees and Repatriates (Groupe d’Appui aux Rapatriés et Réfugiés GARR), which issued a press release asserting that it was possible the U.S. Coast Guard was involved. GARR also feels that Haitian migration needs to be regulated, put in a global context related to economic development.