On November 18, the group left L’ile de la Tortue with little food and water in a cramped travel space for which they had paid anywhere from $147 to $400 for the trip, all in hopes of a better life. On this voyage into threatening weather, some 30 passengers were found to have either drowned, starved or died in some way when the boat ran aground in the Bahamas.
This sad tale of a doomed voyage is actually commonplace in the Caribbean. The U.S. Coast Guard and officials from the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos are no strangers to witnessing these types of fatal voyages. They say that an estimated 4,000 Haitians have attempted to escape their homeland this year by putting their faith in human smugglers and risking their lives at sea trying to get to the United States. The Coast Guard has intercepted more than 400 refugees in the last three months of which 37 have reportedly died.
While it is believed that many are fleeing Haiti because of the problems that exist in the world’s first black republic, many point a finger at the United States because of its first black president and still unreformed immigration policy.
American immigration officials blame the island’s poverty and after-effects of a devastating earthquake in Haiti as the reason.
“Conditions are what they are in Haiti. But without question, the Obama administration has failed to provide one measure of relief, to release some of the pressure on that island that at this point could save lives,” said Steve Forester, the U.S.-based immigration policy coordinator at the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti.
When a devastating earthquake hit Haiti in January 2010, it damaged much of the island’s infrastructure, killed more than 600,000 and left 1.3 million people homeless. Within months, a cholera epidemic infected close to 650,000 Haitians and killed an estimated 8,000. The epidemic was suspected to have been spread by United Nations peacekeepers that were sent to Haiti to help
Article Appeared @http://www.blackbluedog.com/2013/12/news/haitians-risk-their-lives-to-reach-the-u-s/