By DÁNI­CA CO­TO-As­so­ci­at­ed Press 

SAN JUAN, Puer­to Ri­co (AP) — At least 38 peo­ple have been res­cued and 11 bod­ies found as the U.S. Coast Guard scoured the open wa­ters north­west of Puer­to Ri­co on Fri­day via boat, plane and he­li­copter in a bid to find more sur­vivors af­ter a boat car­ry­ing sus­pect­ed mi­grants cap­sized. 

The group was first spot­ted Thurs­day morn­ing by a U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion he­li­copter, with au­thor­i­ties warn­ing it like­ly would have been too late to res­cue any­one oth­er­wise. Res­cue ef­forts were con­cen­trat­ed in an area more than 11 miles (18 kilo­me­ters) north of the un­in­hab­it­ed is­land of Desecheo, which lies west of Puer­to Ri­co. 

“We al­ways look for the pos­si­bil­i­ty of find­ing sur­vivors,” said Coast Guard spokesman Ri­car­do Cas­tro­dad, adding that crews worked through the night. 

It was not im­me­di­ate­ly clear how many peo­ple were in the boat. Of the 38 sur­vivors, 36 were Hait­ian and two were from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, he said. At least eight Hait­ian na­tion­als have been hos­pi­tal­ized, al­though the na­tion­al­i­ties of all those aboard was not im­me­di­ate­ly known. 

“Our hope and prayers are with the sur­vivors and those still miss­ing,” said Coast Guard Rear Ad­mi­ral Bren­dan McPher­son. “Our high­est pri­or­i­ty is sav­ing lives, and that is what my crews will ex­haust them­selves do­ing.” 

Au­thor­i­ties in re­cent months have not­ed a sharp in­crease in mi­grants, es­pe­cial­ly from Haiti and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic, mak­ing what they de­scribe as dan­ger­ous voy­ages aboard rick­ety ships that of­ten cap­size or drop peo­ple off in un­in­hab­it­ed is­lands. It is one of the cheap­est ways for mi­grants to flee pover­ty and vi­o­lence, es­pe­cial­ly in Haiti, where a spike in in­fla­tion, kid­nap­pings and bru­tal gang vi­o­lence have prompt­ed peo­ple to take the risk and board a boat in search of a bet­ter life else­where. 

From Oc­to­ber 2021 to March, 571 Haitians and 252 peo­ple from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic were de­tained in wa­ters around Puer­to Ri­co and the U.S. Vir­gin Is­lands, ac­cord­ing to U.S. Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion. The ma­jor­i­ty of those Haitians, 348 of them, land­ed in Puer­to Ri­co’s un­in­hab­it­ed Mona Is­land and were res­cued. 

In fis­cal year 2021, 310 Haitians and 354 Do­mini­cans were de­tained, com­pared with the 22 Haitians and 313 Do­mini­cans ap­pre­hend­ed in fis­cal year 2020. 

Mean­while, the U.S. Coast Guard said that in the fis­cal year that end­ed Sept. 30, it ap­pre­hend­ed 1,527 Haitians, 838 Cubans and 742 peo­ple from the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic in the re­gion, which in­cludes Flori­da and the Caribbean. 

In Jan­u­ary, the Coast Guard searched for at least 38 peo­ple miss­ing off Flori­da’s coast af­ter a sus­pect­ed hu­man smug­gling boat that had left the Ba­hamas cap­sized in a storm. A sole sur­vivor was re­port­ed. 

More re­cent in­ci­dents in­clude 68 mi­grants res­cued Sat­ur­day in the Mona Pas­sage, a treach­er­ous area be­tween Puer­to Ri­co and the Do­mini­can Re­pub­lic. One woman be­lieved to be from Haiti died. Mean­while, on May 7, Cus­toms and Bor­der Pro­tec­tion de­tained 60 Hait­ian mi­grants that the agency said were smug­gled through south­west Puer­to Ri­co. On May 4, an­oth­er 59 Hait­ian mi­grants were de­tained in north­west Puer­to Ri­co. In late March, of­fi­cials said they de­tained more than 120 mi­grants in three sep­a­rate mar­itime smug­gling in­ci­dents. 

The in­crease in Haitians flee­ing their coun­try comes as gangs grow more pow­er­ful and fight for con­trol over more ter­ri­to­r­i­al amid a po­lit­i­cal vac­u­um fol­low­ing the Ju­ly 7 as­sas­si­na­tion of Pres­i­dent Jovenel Moïse. The ad­min­is­tra­tion of Prime Min­is­ter Ariel Hen­ry has pledged to crack down on gangs with help from the in­ter­na­tion­al com­mu­ni­ty giv­en that Haiti’s Na­tion­al Po­lice is un­der­staffed and has few re­sources. 

The coun­try al­so has been hit with dou­ble-dig­it in­fla­tion, se­vere gas short­ages and gang vi­o­lence that has shut­tered hun­dreds of schools and busi­ness­es and prompt­ed some hos­pi­tals and clin­ics to tem­porar­i­ly close. In ad­di­tion, the ad­min­is­tra­tion of U.S. Pres­i­dent Joe Biden has de­port­ed more than 20,000 Haitians in re­cent months amid heavy crit­i­cism giv­en the coun­try’s down­ward spi­ral.