At least 11 people died on Thursday after a boat sank, with dozens of migrants aboard, west of Puerto Rico, the US Coast Guard said. The US Coast Guard detailed on its official Twitter account that so far it has managed to rescue 31 survivors, 11 women and 20 men.
The boat, in which illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic were being transported, capsized about 10 nautical miles north of the Puerto Rican islet of Desecheo.
The strip of water known as Canal de Mona, which separates the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico, is a regular immigration route and boats are seized there every week.
On Thursday, for example, the Coast Guard announced that it had repatriated 44 Dominicans to a Dominican Republic Navy ship after two ships were intercepted in the Mona Channel trying to illegally reach the west coast of Puerto Rico.
The site is also the scene of shipwrecks like this Thursday. Three days ago, the Coast Guard reported that it had rescued a total of 68 people and recovered the body of a man after the boat they were traveling on sank.
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