Haitian survivors accuse Turks and Caicos officials of leaving them for dead

CAP-HAITIEN, Haiti: Survivors of a capsizing that killed at least 61 Haitian migrants said a Turks and Caicos patrol boat rammed them, towed them into deeper water and abandoned their overturned vessel.

"Our boat flipped over and they just left us out there," said Dona Daniel, 23, one of a half-dozen survivors interviewed by The Associated Press on Thursday after they were repatriated to Haiti from the nearby British territory.

The survivors said some migrants tried desperately to pull themselves aboard the patrol boat but were beaten back with wooden batons.

Others were run over by the patrol boat after they were flung into the shark-filled waters as their boat capsized, said Lovderson Nacon, 19.

Many of the migrants did not know how to swim and were screaming "God help me!" in the darkness, Nacon said.

The Haitians said their sailboat, loaded with an estimated 160 people, was minutes away from the shore of Providenciales, one of the Turks and Caicos Islands, on May 4 when the patrol boat rammed them before dawn.

"When they hit us the first time, water rushed into the boat and everybody screamed," Daniel said. The patrol boat crew ordered the migrants to lower their sails, threw them a line and began towing them into deeper water. The boat then capsized, he said.

"We thought they were bringing us to shore but they took us further out to sea," said Daniel, whose two brothers drowned.

Minutes after towing began, the migrants' boat jerked violently and tipped over, flinging everyone into the water, several survivors said.

"They were towing us but they pulled too hard and the boat flipped over," said another migrant, Marcelin Charles, 37. "We fell into the water and many people drowned. I was swimming past dead bodies left and right."

The Turks and Caicos government has said it will not comment until two investigations are completed. Britain's Foreign Office also declined to comment on the capsizing in its island territory. One probe is being conducted by the local government, and three government experts from Britain are carrying out an independent investigation.

The Turks and Caicos government has criticized Haiti for not doing enough to stem illegal migration. Some 400 Haitians arrive monthly in the British territory of 20,000, many having been duped by migrant smugglers into thinking they were being taken to the United States, officials say.

After being flown back to Cap-Haitien, Haiti's second-largest city, the migrants, wearing maroon T-shirts and athletic pants, were driven on a school bus to a gymnasium where about 100 relatives, many weeping, greeted them.

The relatives called out their loved ones' names, not sure if they had survived the worst disaster to hit Haitian migrants in years. More than a dozen are still missing and presumed dead.

Nacon said he was in the water for more than 15 minutes before a smaller Turks and Caicos patrol boat came out to pull survivors from the water. Other migrants said they were in the water for more than 40 minutes as they waited for the rescue boat to make a return trip.

"They heard us screaming so much, they finally came and helped us," Nacon said. "The people who knew how to swim lived. The people who didn't drowned."

At United Nations headquarters in New York, spokeswoman Michele Montas earlier Thursday described the capsizing as "a tragedy" and said "it could have been avoided." However Montas, a Haitian, said the U.N. had no further comment and that the issue was between the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti.

Jeanne Bernard Pierre, director-general of Haiti's National Migration Office, said Tuesday that the Haitian government would consider the ramming of a migrant boat to be a "criminal" act.