The Tribune

By LEANDRA ROLLE

Tribune Staff Reporter

lrolle@tribunemedia.net

THE Royal Bahamas Defence Force has seen a marked increase in illegal migration activity over the last three months, with nearly 1,500 migrants apprehended in Bahamian waters within that time frame.

The latest statistics show there have been 1,892 migrants apprehended by local authorities since the start of this year, with most of those interdictions taking place in March.

January and February saw 329 and 253 apprehensions respectively. In March, there were 741 migrants apprehended, while 491 foreign nationals were arrested in April. So far in May, there have been 78 migrants apprehended from Bahamian waters.

Apprehensions of Haitian nationals were the highest at 1,688 followed by Cubans at 192, Columbians and Ecuadorians at four each, Hondurans at three and one for Africa, according to the latest RBDF data. There were also 30 interdictions.

The data was released to The Tribune by RBDF Commodore Raymond King yesterday. This comes after the Department of Immigration took 140 Haitian nationals into custody on Sunday.

A group of 78 Haitians, including 61 men, 10 women and seven children were turned over to the Immigration Enforcement Unit. The group of migrants was found onboard a sailing vessel and intercepted by the HMBS Madeira in waters near South Beach, New Providence.

Further on Saturday, 62 Haitians were turned over to the unit. This group consisted of 38 men, eight women and 16 children. This group was also found on a sailing vessel near Nuevita Rosk, west of Long Island. While they were found on Wednesday, April 27, they were turned over to officials on Saturday.

In total, there have been 388 migrants repatriated from The Bahamas in less than two weeks.

In an interview with The Tribune yesterday, Commodore King spoke on the latest trends pertaining to migrant activity and the methods used by the foreign nationals to conceal themselves from local authorities.

He said modern migrant vessels tend to look more like “pleasure” or “recreational” sail boats and are moving at faster speeds.

He said in one instance, officials spent nearly four days trying to locate a vessel of interest in the Ragged Island chain after boat captains dropped their sails in an attempt to blend in.

“This makes it difficult for our aircraft to positively identify them,” the RBDF chief said. “We would actually have to send vessels in amongst those cays to verify who is anchored behind those cays so it’s a very difficult task but we are glad that the coastal radar, the one that was recently installed donated from the United States government did its job.”

He also said that while most migrants appear to be heading to the United States as their final destination, there are still some “sporadic” nationals who target The Bahamas for entry.

“We’ve seen a shift whereby the migrants are now moving along the Great Bahama Bank so they’ve shifted that along the Cuban coast riding along southern end of our jurisdiction and across the great Bahama bank and so it’s an evasive tactic that they’ve used,” he continued.

“There’s a vessel now that the Coast Guard is dealing with now at the western end of north Andros and so they’re arriving at great Bahama Bank and going as high as possible before they make their break towards the United States so that’s a matter that is going on with an excess of some 200 migrants aboard, so we look to receive those persons from the Coast Guard.

“But we still have the sporadic migrants who aim for The Bahamas who despite what the intel is telling us, once they get on the Great Bahama Bank and they wait south of New Providence which places them mid-point between an equal distance between Ragged Island and Andros and we have seen them try to move northwards to catch us off guard and come straight to New Providence.”

“…and so, the migrant movement has picked up significantly and we have to remain disciplined and we have to continue to protect our borders and my aim is to intercept them as far out as possible but at times, with the security environment is very dynamic because any criminalisation, once you’re able to counter what they’re doing, they will shift their tactics and you have to pay attention to the new trending to shift the way we do business in order to counter what they’re doing.”

As for the reasons behind the increased migrant movement, Commodore King said: “It may be due in part to the United States intent of doing away with I think it’s titled rule 42 whereby migrants will now be given an opportunity to be heard in terms of asylum and the Haitian nationals are looking for the same treatment that Cubans get in being heard in terms of asylum and we believe that’s a strong pull factor, but we still have to remain vigilant in The Bahamas because we’ve seen two vessel which attempted to get to Exuma and New Providence. So, we have to stay disciplined and continue to do our jobs.”

Earlier this year, Commodore King said migrant apprehensions in The Bahamas increased by 456 percent in 2021 when compared with the 2020.

At the time, he said the high occurrence of apprehensions were likely tied to the influx of Haitian migrants who were seen in Inagua in late September in response to increasing social and political turmoil in the Caribbean country.

He also credited the collaboration of the country’s international partners like OPBAT and the United States Coast Guard for assisting with its interception efforts of foreign nationals in Bahamian jurisdiction.