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Naval ship rammed Haitian migrants' sailboat: survivors

Haitian migrants say a Turks and Caicos naval vessel rammed their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized last week, killing more than 60 people, a senior Haitian official said on Tuesday.

Jeanne Bernard Pierre, the director-general of Haiti's National Migration Office, said the migrants' account had not been confirmed but Haiti would consider it "criminal" if found true.

"The survivors say the accident wasn't an accident, it was provoked," Pierre said by telephone from the Turks and Caicos Islands, where she met with survivors at a detention center.

"They say they were hit twice by a coast guard boat from the Turks and Caicos," she said.

Turks and Caicos Police Inspector Hilton Duncan declined to comment on claims the migrants boat was rammed, saying the sinking is under investigation.

On Tuesday, Turks and Caicos Governor Richard Tauwhare told reporters the vessel had capsized while it was being towed by a police boat in rough seas, contradicting earlier claims by local officials that police arrived on the scene only after the migrant boat capsized.

Meanwhile, the death toll rose to 61 from Friday's pre-dawn capsizing of the migrant-laden sailboat off the Turks and Caicos, after more bodies were found drifting in the Atlantic Ocean, the government of the British Caribbean territory said.

Some of those who died were mutilated by sharks. More than a dozen migrants were still missing and presumed dead.

The 78 survivors from the estimated 160 migrants aboard the boat were being held in the Turks and Caicos, about 200km north of Haiti, until authorities could repatriate them.

Pierre said the survivors told her they received no warning before being hit and that the Turks and Caicos vessel threw them a line and tried towing them in before the boat capsized.

"We would think that would be criminal if it really happened that way," she said.

"We have to wait for the results of the investigation, before pronouncing [judgment] ourselves," she said.

The US Coast Guard said in a press statement on Friday its officials were notified by Turks and Caicos police at 5am that the migrant boat capsized while being towed by a Turks and Caicos police vessel at 4:20am.

However, Turks and Caicos officials later denied the report.

Pierre said she met with Tauwhare on Tuesday and was told that an investigation would take three weeks.

She said the remains of 24 migrants would be buried in the Turks and Caicos yesterday, while the remaining bodies would be sent back to Haiti.
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