The Tribune

By LAMECH JOHNSON

Tribune Staff Reporter

ljohnson@tribunemedia.net

LAW enforcement officers apprehended more than 150 persons at sea during Christmas week who were either being smuggled into or out of the Bahamas.

The latest arrest occurred on Christmas Day during a joint operation by the Department of Immigration and the Royal Bahamas Police Force when a vessel was stopped six miles off Barre Tarre, Exuma.

Officials said 93 men and 19 women, believed to be Haitians, were on board.

The Immigration Department released a statement yesterday confirming that these individuals were brought to Nassau after being held overnight at the E C McKenzie auditorium in Ramsay, Exuma.

The day before – on Christmas Eve – immigration officers were on routine patrol in Exuma when they discovered a vessel in Bahama Sound Three. This led to 24 suspected illegal migrants being taken into custody to be sent to Nassau for repatriation.

One of the individuals was a resident and work permit holder.

On Sunday, December 21, 19 people were also interdicted in Abaco on suspicion of trying to smuggle their way into the United States.

Among the group were two mothers with five children and a pregnant woman who are being held in a special holding facility for women and their children in Nassau while the others are at the Detention Centre in Carmichael Road.

The Royal Bahamas Defence Force also reported to the Department of Immigration the sighting of yet another vessel on December 25 believed to be transporting illegal migrants. It dispatched a patrol boat to interdict the vessel.

However, there has been no update on their attempts in this regard.

The Department of Immigration also reported that Amos Pierre, an illegal migrant, was fined $300 for illegal landing and ordered to be deported after paying the fine. Evans Doraval, a work permit holder in Exuma, was fined $3,000 and sentenced to two years in prison for assisting with the illegal landing, the department said.

The men were convicted in a Magistrate’s Court in George Town, Exuma, on Christmas Eve. The two interdictions and one sighting has brought the total number of illegal migrant vessels in Bahamian waters to three in the past seven days.

More than 3,000 migrants from 24 different countries were repatriated to their homelands since the beginning of the year, according to the Department of Immigration. Eighty-three per cent of the migrants repatriated were from Haiti.