The U.S. Coast Guard on Sunday intercepted a hundred Haitian migrants crammed into a sailboat sailing off the coast of Florida, the institution reported Monday.
“U.S. Coast Guard crews safely transferred 104 migrants from the Haitian sailboat to patrol boat Richard Etheridge,” the source said on Twitter.
Authorities stopped the boat Sunday, about 29 miles east of Biscay Bay, off the coast of Miami.
A “good Samaritan” alerted authorities to the ship’s presence, the Coast Guard said in a first tweet Sunday night.
The small sailboat was sailing crowded with people, according to images posted on Twitter by the institution.
“Once on board the patrol boat, all migrants received food, water, shelter and basic medical care,” the Coast Guard said. “No medical problems have been reported so far.”
Haiti is the poorest country in America, according to the World Bank, with 60% of the population below the poverty line.
On August 14, a magnitude 7.2 earthquake devastated the southwest of the country, killing more than 2,200 people and destroying thousands of homes.
This catastrophe hit a state plagued by chronic insecurity and great political instability, especially after the assassination of President Jovenel Moise on July 7 at his Port-au-Prince residence.