Nothing will stop the Bahamians who are making millions of dollars per year in human trafficking.
With the help of politicans, prominent business people, police and defence force officers, there’s no reason the smugglers have to stop.
This explains why a sloop holding more than 100 Haitian migrants ran aground just south of Harbour Island Saturday night.
Director of Immigration Jack Thompson said that the the 141 men, women and children on board the 60-foot wooden sloop were apprehended and are being processed.
Mr Thompson could not confirm witness reports that several of the immigrants drowned after jumping off the boat in an attempt to swim to land and evade police.
Thompson said the group will be tested for cholera before they are repatriated because, only three weeks ago, a Haitian immigrant was diagnosed for the deadly disease at the Detention Center on Carmichael Road.
According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the United States, an epidemic cholera strain has been confirmed in Haiti. Cholera is a potentially fatal bacterial infection.
It has been reported that Health Minister Dr Hubert Minnis sent doctors and nurses to Harbour Island to examine the immigrants, who were ferried to a resort on the main island.
This most recent group of Haitians may be expatriated directly from Eleuthera to avoid any deadly diseases being carried to Nassau.
Nobody can explain how a Haitain sloop, traveling about 3mph for eight days, could come all the way from Haiti without cooperation from the Bahamian Defence Force.
“Some defence,” one critic said.
The Creole captain of the Haitian sloop allegedly told police that he was assisted in the smuggling operation by a Bahamian resident of Harbour Island. The Punch reports that the Bahamian people-smuggler is an FNM election general for North Eleuthera and one of the top campaign officials for Prime Minister Hubert Ingraham.
Immigration’s Mr Thompson said this latest apprehension comes just days after immigration officers conducted an operation which resulted in the apprehension of 44 people.
And, only two weeks ago, 14 immigrants were found floating adrift near Grand Bahama after being left to die by their Bahamian smugglers when their boat broke down.
Bahamians familiar with that situation say they are concerned that, while the immigrants will be charged and made to pay the consequences of their actions, the Bahamian smugglers will get off scot-free.
That is what happened in the past, when the same boat, operated by the same Bahamian human-smugglers was caught before. The boat was impounded but later released and the owners of the boat and people involved in the smuggling operation were never prosecuted.
The Bahamas has a serious human trafficking problem as evidenced in this news article from October 25.
https://www.bahamasb2b.com/news/2011/10/bahamian-officials-caught-protecting-human-smugglers-14169.html
