At least 40 rescued, 2 dead as boat capsizes after machete fight near Puerto Rico

At least 40 people were rescued in open waters by the U.S. Coast Guard and two people died after their boat capsized several miles from a tiny, uninhabited island west of Puerto Rico following a fight that involved a machete, officials said on Monday.

Survivors said there was an estimated 60 people aboard, according to the Coast Guard.

The Coast Guard said the makeshift boat capsized late Sunday after a fight in which some people were severely injured by a machete, forcing the group to jump into the water despite not wearing life vests.

Survivors had spent more than 12 hours in the water when someone on a boat passing near Mona Island noticed them at around noon on Monday.

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The person alerted authorities and helped rescue four people at that moment.

Rescue efforts were still ongoing as of Monday evening.

The Coast Guard said it was not immediately known where the people who were on the capsized boat were from.

Migrants fleeing poverty and violence have long traveled from Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic, to Puerto Rico and other islands, moving through the Mona Passage.

Many of these migrants navigate the passage on makeshift boats that can capsize in treacherous waters.

This incident marked only the latest deadly voyage.

In June 2022, 11 Haitian women and girls were buried in Puerto Rico after their grossly overloaded boat capsized in open waters northwest of the U.S. territory.

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Last week, police in the Turks and Caicos Islands detained a makeshift vessel carrying 60 Haitian migrants.

In June, 240 Haitian migrants were detained near the the Turks and Caicos Islands.

Gang violence has displaced a record 1.5 million people across Haiti, where more than 3,000 people were reportedly killed between January and June, according to U.N. data.

Armed men control an estimated 70% of Port-au-Prince and portions of land in Haiti’s central region and beyond.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.