Boat fire kills at least 40 Haitian migrants, IOM reports

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PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – At least 40 Haitian migrants were killed at sea after the boat they were traveling on caught fire on Wednesday, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Haiti said on Friday.

The boat, which was carrying over 80 people, departed from Fort Saint-Michel in Haiti’s north and was headed for the Turks and Caicos islands, the IOM said in a statement, citing the Caribbean nation’s migration authority..

Forty-one migrants survived the fire and were rescued by the Haitian coast guard. They are currently receiving care and support provided by the IOM, and 11 of them were taken to the nearest hospital, the statement said.

People on the boat used matches to light candles in a ritual to ask for safe passage, leading gasoline-filled drums to catch fire and explode, Jean-Henry Petit, who heads the civil protection office in northern Haiti, told the Miami Herald.

“This devastating event highlights the risks faced by children, women, and men migrating through irregular routes,” IOM’s chief of mission in Haiti Gregoire Goodstein said in a statement.

Goodstein also stressed that the extreme gang-fueled violence in Haiti over the past many months has pushed Haitians “to resort to desperate measures” to flee the country.

Several hundreds Kenyan police have arrived in Haiti over the course of July as part of the long-delayed mission mandated to help Haitian police fight armed gangs that have taken over most of capital Port-au-Prince. The violence has fueled a humanitarian crisis that has driven nearly 600,000 from their homes and 5 million into severe food insecurity.

(Reporting by Harold Isaac and Stéphanie Hamel, Writing by Kylie Madry; Editing by Anthony Esposito)