More than 100 Haitian immigrants arrive in US by boat – 01/03/2023

More than a hundred Haitian immigrants arrived in South Florida on a sailboat this Tuesday (3), amid waves of migration to the southern US state, local newspapers reported.

The “Miami Herald” newspaper quoted one of its passengers as saying that the boat left Haiti last Friday.

The US Border Patrol confirmed on Twitter the arrival of “a large number of migrants” in Key Largo, 110 km south of Miami, without disclosing their nationalities.

The number of people on a sailboat varies depending on the source. For the Miami Herald, they numbered more than 100, while NBC Miami reported about 200.

The South Florida archipelago has received hundreds of migrants in recent days, most of them Cubans. The region’s sheriff characterized the current situation as a “mass migration crisis.”

The arrival of about 300 migrants at Dry Tortugas National Park prompted officials to close the site until further notice.

Haiti, America’s poorest country, has been mired in years of economic, political and security crisis, worsened by the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021 and the growing weight of criminal gangs. Meanwhile, Cuba faces its worst economic crisis since the 1990s.

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© Agence France-Presse