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WORLD NEWS Saturday 14 May 2022
38 rescued, 11 dead as US searches waters near Puerto Rico

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) inhabited Mona Island and
— At least 38 people have were rescued.
been rescued and 11 bod- In fiscal year 2021, 310 Hai-
ies found as the U.S. Coast tians and 354 Dominicans
Guard scoured the open were detained, compared
waters northwest of Puerto with the 22 Haitians and 313
Rico on Friday via boat, Dominicans apprehended
plane and helicopter in a in fiscal year 2020.
bid to find more survivors Meanwhile, the U.S. Coast
after a boat carrying sus- Guard said that in the fiscal
pected migrants capsized. year that ended Sept. 30,
The group was first spot- it apprehended 1,527 Hai-
ted Thursday morning by tians, 838 Cubans and 742
a U.S. Customs and Border people from the Domini-
Protection helicopter, with can Republic in the region,
authorities warning it likely which includes Florida and
would have been too late the Caribbean.
to rescue anyone other- In January, the Coast
wise. Rescue efforts were Guard searched for at least
concentrated in an area This photo released by the Seventh U.S. Coast Guard District shows people standing on a capsized 38 people missing off Flori-
more than 11 miles (18 ki- boat, left, as some of its passengers are pulled up on to a rescue boat, top, in the open waters da's coast after a suspect-
lometers) north of the un- northwest of Puerto Rico, Thursday, May 12, 2022. ed human smuggling boat
inhabited island of Dese- Associated Press that had left the Bahamas
cheo, which lies west of capsized in a storm. A sole
Puerto Rico. "Our hope and prayers are said her agency has been in Haiti, where a spike in survivor was reported.
"We always look for the pos- with the survivors and those talking to Dominican con- inflation, kidnappings and More recent incidents in-
sibility of finding survivors," still missing," said Coast sular officials to identify brutal gang violence have clude 68 migrants rescued
said Coast Guard spokes- Guard Rear Admiral Bren- family members of those prompted people to take Saturday in the Mona Pas-
man Ricardo Castrodad, dan McPherson. "Our high- who died. the risk and board a boat in sage, a treacherous area
adding that crews worked est priority is saving lives, Authorities in recent months search of a better life else- between Puerto Rico and
through the night. and that is what my crews have noted a sharp in- where. the Dominican Republic.
It was not immediately will exhaust themselves do- crease in migrants, espe- From October 2021 to One woman believed to
clear how many people ing." cially from Haiti and the Do- March, 571 Haitians and be from Haiti died. Mean-
were in the boat. Of the 38 All 11 victims were female, minican Republic, making 252 people from the Do- while, on May 7, Customs
survivors, 36 were Haitian according to Puerto Rico's what they describe as dan- minican Republic were and Border Protection de-
and two were from the Do- Forensic Science Institute, gerous voyages aboard detained in waters around tained 60 Haitian migrants
minican Republic, he said. which announced it was rickety ships that often Puerto Rico and the U.S. that the agency said were
At least eight Haitian na- forming a special team to capsize or drop people off Virgin Islands, according smuggled through south-
tionals have been hospital- perform autopsies Friday in uninhabited islands. It is to U.S. Customs and Border west Puerto Rico. On May 4,
ized, although the national- on the bodies recovered. one of the cheapest ways Protection. The majority of another 59 Haitian migrants
ities of all those aboard was María Conte Miller, the in- for migrants to flee poverty those Haitians, 348 of them, were detained in northwest
not immediately known. stitute's executive director, and violence, especially landed in Puerto Rico's un- Puerto Rico. q

U.N. humanitarian official urges attention to drought in Kenya

Associated Press ery has not left Turkana, ciated Press of their desper-
TURKANA, Kenya (AP) — A and the world's rains have ate need for food aid.
top United Nations humani- not come to Turkana, and "I have not received any
tarian official has raised we've seen four successive help, and this child has
concern about people go- failures of the rains." not eaten anything since
ing hungry in a remote part Griffiths and other humani- yesterday," Jecinta Maluk,
of northern Kenya, joining tarian representatives visit- a mother of five children,
calls for the international ed a pastoralist community said. "This is the main prob-
community to commit in Turkana's Lomuputh area lem."
more resources to address as part of efforts to draw at- The extreme drought in Ke-
the wider region's drought tention to the humanitarian nya, where 3.5 million peo-
crisis. challenge stemming from ple are affected by severe
Martin Griffiths, the U.N. un- the drought. food insecurity and acute
der-secretary-general for "Lomoputh deserves our malnutrition, has excacer-
humanitarian affairs, said attention," Griffiths said, bated the factors causing
he saw families in Kenya's noting that children scav- people to go hungry. A mother helps her malnourished son stand after he collapsed
Turkana region that have enging for fruit to eat need The U.N. warned earlier this near their hut in the village of Lomoputh in northern Kenya,
nothing left after their ani- help "to have the slightest year that an estimated 13 Thursday, May 12, 2022.
mals starved to death. Tur- possibility to survive to the million people are facing Associated Press
kana is an epicenter of the next day." severe hunger in the wider
drought affecting parts of Kenyan President Uhuru Horn of Africa region as a munities. ticularly vulnerable. About
the East African country. Kenyatta declared the result of persistent drought Somalia, Ethiopia and Ke- 250,000 people there died
"The world's attention is drought conditions a na- conditions. nya face the driest condi- from hunger in 2011, when
elsewhere, and we know tional disaster in September Malnutrition rates are high tions recorded since 1981, the U.N. declared a fam-
that," Griffiths said during 2021. in the region, and drought the U.N. World Food Pro- ine in some parts of the
a visit to the region Thurs- Some residents of Lo- conditions are affecting gram reported in February. country. Half of them were
day. "And the world's mis- moputh spoke to The Asso- pastoral and farming com- Somalia is seen as par- children.q