US Coast Guard suspends search for 15 missing migrants after boat capsizes

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2004

MIAMI (AFP) — The US Coast Guard (USCG) said it suspended the search for 15 migrants missing since their boat capsized off Puerto Rico's Desecheo Island earlier this week.

Before ending the search, the Coast Guard had rescued 14 of those aboard the boat and recovered three bodies.

It said the 13-meter (29-foot) fishing boat that capsized Monday fit the description of a boat stolen from Bahia Beach in the Dominican Republic earlier that day.

"As a team we will continue to patrol these waters to interdict, rescue and repatriate migrants at sea, but as long as long as people continue to ignore the danger of these voyages we will be witnesses to more avoidable deaths," said Captain Douglas Rudolph, who commands the USCG's Greater Antilles Section.

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