At least 40 dead after boat catches fire as migrants try to escape Haiti, officials say

At least 40 migrants have died and several others were injured after a boat they were traveling in caught fire off the northern coast of Haiti, a United Nations agency said Friday. A government official said the migrants were trying to escape to the Turks and Caicos Islands.

The U.N.'s International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that the Haitian Coast Guard rescued 41 survivors, 11 of whom were hospitalized, including some for burns.

But "at least 40 migrants have died, and several others were injured," the IOM said.

The dead included the captain of the boat, according to Arnold Jean, a spokesperson for the police in Cap-Haïtien.

The boat, carrying more than 80 people, had left the port of Labadee on Wednesday en route to the Turks and Caicos Islands, a 150-mile journey, the IOM reported, citing Haiti's National Office for Migration.

The fire likely started when two drums of gasoline ignited, Civil Protection official Jean Henry-Petit said. Passengers were drinking rum and whiskey, according to a witness, which may have come into contact with the flammable substance, causing the fire.

"Desperate measures"

Migration from the poverty-stricken Caribbean country has been surging for months, as thousands of people flee a spike in violence from criminal gangs that now control wide swaths of territory.

"Haiti's socioeconomic situation is in agony," said Gregoire Goodstein, IOM's chief of mission in the country. "The extreme violence over the past months has only brought Haitians to resort to desperate measures even more."

Hundreds of police officers from Kenya have deployed in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince, part of an international effort to bring stability to a country riven by political, social and economic chaos.

Criminal gangs now control 80 percent of the capital city, with residents saying they have faced murder, rape, theft and kidnapping for ransom.

Since February 29, Haitian Coast Guard units in the north have observed an increasing number of departures by boat, the IOM said.

Countries including the United States, the Bahamas, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and Jamaica say they have intercepted a growing number of boats originating from Haiti. Last month, 118 Haitian migrants were picked up by U.S. Border Patrol agents on Key West after coming ashore.

More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year, according to the IOM.

Last month, the IOM said data showed over 578,000 people were internally displaced across Haiti, a 60% increase since March.

"The unending crisis in Haiti is pushing more and more people to flee their homes and leave everything behind," Philippe Branchat, head of the IOM in Haiti, said in a statement. "This is not something they do lightly. What's more, for many of them, this is not the first time."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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• Haiti
• Migrants