The Tribune

JUAN Esteban Montoya Caicedo didn’t know if he would live or die as he clung to the overturned boat he set out aboard from Bimini.

He was the sole survivor found by the US Coast Guard off Florida after the boat capsized. He survived by clinging tightly onto the overturned boat. Those who travelled with him – including his 18-year-old sister, María, were not so lucky. Five bodies were found by authorities, but 35 people remained missing when the Coast Guard suspended its search.

The story of how Juan Esteban travelled from Colombia through The Bahamas and then on to the United States has highlighted the deadly trade in human smuggling taking place here in our country.

Too many people crowded too tightly on a boat with no life vests was a recipe for disaster – and a situation that happens all too often.

Juan Esteban said that among those on board the ship were people from Haiti, Jamaica – and The Bahamas. A baby was among those on the overcrowded vessel.

After the boat overturned, about 15 people initially survived. Among those were two smugglers, who were picked up by another boat. That boat didn’t pick up any of the migrants, but promised to come back. It’s no surprise it never did.

Two days later, Juan Esteban was alone, the others having died or drifted away.

What this story tells us is that there is a well-established human smuggling operation that has been operating out of Bimini.

More, those operating it might as well have murdered these people when they took that second boat away and never came back.

Bimini is not a large island, nor does it have a big population. For a smuggling operation to be run from the island, some of the local community would more than likely know what was going on.

And yet, since this tragedy claimed the lives of an entire boatload of people, there has been no word of a heightened police presence to find the smugglers. This should be an investigation at the highest level, spoken to by the Commissioner of Police and the National Security Minister and operated in partnership with our international partners.

We know that these operations more than likely involve those with significant resources to arrange travel across borders, hire boat captains and so on. This is organised crime, not just some opportunist with a boat.

At the political level, we should make clear there should be no harbour for anyone associated with human smuggling. No favour, no support, no enabling of this ever-rising body count of people who board a vessel seeking a better life but end up shivering in the sea with no hope of rescue. Or worse – do we need to be reminded of the charred corpses of three men and one woman found on Anguilla Cay in 2014 with tyres set alight on top of the bodies?

Time and again, we see stories of migrants dying at sea – most notably in 2019 when a sloop shipwrecked with the loss of 31 lives near Abaco in 2019.

There is too little mourning for the loss of these lives, as if they somehow don’t matter because they do not come from here.

But hearing the story of Juan Esteban, as he fought to survive even as he mourned his sister, it shows the human face of those caught up in this web of smuggling.

“I had to live,” he said, “they had to rescue me, because I had to tell my parents what happened.”

Juan Esteban urged others in his situation not to flee by sea, saying “It broke my heart in two. And took part of it away.”

These are brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers – and those who exploit them, take their money and leave them for dead are the true criminals here. And they should have no place in our society.