The Unit­ed Na­tions con­firmed Fri­day that at least 40 mi­grants died when a boat in which they were trav­el­ling caught fire off Cap Haï­tien.

Farhan Haq, the Deputy Spokesper­son for the UN Sec­re­tary-Gen­er­al, told the dai­ly brief­ing that two days ago, the boat, car­ry­ing over 80 peo­ple, de­part­ed from Labadee en route to the Turks and Caicos Is­lands, a 250-kilo­me­tre jour­ney.

“We have sad news from the north of Haiti. Col­leagues from the In­ter­na­tion­al Or­ga­ni­za­tion for Mi­gra­tion (IOM) say that at least 40 mi­grants have died, and sev­er­al oth­ers were in­jured, af­ter a boat they were trav­el­ling in caught fire off Cap Haï­tien,” Haq said.

“Forty-one sur­viv­ing mi­grants who were aboard were res­cued by the Hait­ian Coast Guard and are cur­rent­ly re­ceiv­ing med­ical care, food, wa­ter, and psy­choso­cial sup­port pro­vid­ed by IOM, in sup­port of the na­tion­al au­thor­i­ties. Eleven mi­grants were tak­en to the near­est hos­pi­tal for treat­ment, in­clud­ing burns,” he added.

The Head of IOM in Haiti, Gré­goire Good­stein, said this dev­as­tat­ing event demon­strates the cru­cial need for safe and le­gal path­ways for mi­gra­tion.

IOM said that more than 86,000 mi­grants have been forcibly re­turned to Haiti by neigh­bour­ing coun­tries this year.

Mean­while, Haq said UN teams are con­tin­u­ing to pro­vide sup­port to the au­thor­i­ties in their re­sponse to Hur­ri­cane Beryl in Grena­da, St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, and Ja­maica.

“In Grena­da and St. Vin­cent, our teams are tak­ing part in rapid as­sess­ments. They’re al­so help­ing to de­liv­er hu­man­i­tar­i­an sup­plies, re­store pow­er and health care ser­vices, and sup­port­ing shel­ter man­age­ment, among oth­er ac­tiv­i­ties”.

Haq said that on Fri­day, the Of­fice for the Co­or­di­na­tion of Hu­man­i­tar­i­an Af­fairs in New York, chaired a mem­ber state brief­ing on the im­pact and re­sponse to the hur­ri­cane.

“We heard from, among oth­ers, the Prime Min­is­ter of St. Vin­cent and the Grenadines, Dr. Ralph E. Gon­salves, as well as rep­re­sen­ta­tives of oth­er af­fect­ed gov­ern­ments, in ad­di­tion to Si­mon Springett, the Res­i­dent Co­or­di­na­tor for Bar­ba­dos and the East­ern Caribbean, and Eliz­a­beth Ri­ley, the Ex­ec­u­tive Di­rec­tor of the Caribbean Dis­as­ter Emer­gency Man­age­ment,” Haq said. —UNIT­ED NA­TIONS (CMC)