Twenty bodies believed to be those of Haitian migrants were found in a boat adrift along the northern coast of Brazil, in an advanced state of decomposition and showing signs of dehydration and hunger, police said on Saturday.
Fishermen alerted authorities after noticing the boat drifting near the town of Braganca, in Para state, a federal police spokesperson told AFP, adding that the investigation should confirm the exact number of victims, their identities and causes of death.
“According to civil police and forensic experts, there were 20 bodies. The head of the federal police of Braganca, Alexandre Calvinho, said that they were Haitian refugees,” the police said in a statement.
The victims “would have died of starvation and dehydration, but additional analyzes are necessary”, it is added.
An investigation was opened by the prosecutor’s office.
The G1 news site published a video attributed to one of the fishermen, showing a wooden boat with faded blue paint floating in shallow water and a man saying, “That’s a lot of bodies.”
Braganca is located more than 3,500 km from Haiti, which has been in the grip of a serious humanitarian and security crisis for several months.
The International Organization for Migration (IOM) warned this month that the situation was causing a large exodus. “For most Haitians, the prospect of regular migration remains an insurmountable obstacle, leaving irregular migration as the only semblance of hope,” the IOM said in recent days.
According to the IOM, some 360,000 Haitians have been displaced internally, “many of them multiple times,” and some 13,000 irregular migrants were forcibly returned in March by neighboring countries.
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