Coast Guard repatriates 160 Haitian migrants

The United States Coast Guard says 160 Haitian migrants have been repatriated after they were intercepted aboard an overloaded, 40-foot freighter about 30 miles west of Great Inagua, a southernmost island in the Bahamas archipelago, according to a report on www.cananews.net.



\"Coast Guard crew distributed personal flotation devices to the migrants and transferred them to the (Coast Guard) cutter,\" it said in a statement issued here.



\"Once aboard, migrants received food, water, shelter and necessary medical attention,\" it added.



The Coast Guard said the migrants were repatriated to Cap-Haitien, Haiti\'s second largest city, on Tuesday.



It said each year hundreds of Haitian migrants board overcrowded vessels in an effort to reach the Bahamas or South Florida for a better way of life, with many of them dying.



In July, a boat that left Haiti struck a reef near the Turks and Caicos Islands and started sinking. There were 119 survivors, but rescuers plucked 15 bodies from the shark-infested waters. An estimated 67 migrants went unaccounted for.