Searchers have recovered the bodies of 11 Haitians who died in the sinking of a small, overcrowded boat off the Bahamas, and 12 others are missing, US and Bahamian authorities said Tuesday. Several children were among the dead and missing from the sinking, said Loretta Mackey, a spokeswoman for The Royal Bahamas Police in Freeport, Grand Bahama told AFP.
Mackey said five people survived the sinking of the 26-foot (7.5-meter) boat, which was crowded with 28 people when it left Haiti. "We don't know when this boat left Haiti, the survivors told us that the capsizing of their boat happened on Sunday, three or four hours off the island of Abaco in the northern Bahamas," she said. A US Coast Guard spokesman earlier said the boat broke up off Hawksbill Cay in the Bahamas on its way to the United States.