A 10-year-old Indian girl remains missing at sea after a boat carrying migrants capsized outside of San Diego on Monday morning. One of the bodies recovered is the girl’s 14-year-old brother. According to the Department of Justice, the family’s mother is hospitalized while their father remains in a coma.
The US Coast Guard announced it had stopped its search on Monday evening. The justice department stated that of the original nine people reported missing, all except for the 10-year-old girl had been found. Two Mexican nationals were killed in the boat’s capsizing as well.
The vessel, a blue “panga”-style boat, a type of boat historically used for fishing, was more than 20ft long, and had a damaged engine. The boat washed up on San Diego’s Torrey Pines beach, and was spotted by local hikers at about 6.30am on Monday morning.
Shawn Gibson, a special agent in charge of the US Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agency, said the incident was a “stark reminder of the dangers posed by maritime smuggling”.
“The ruthless smuggling of undocumented individuals is not only illegal, it’s deadly,” Gibson said of the incident, which occurred about 30 miles north of the US-Mexico border. Read said ocean conditions off the San Diego county coast were rough at the time, with 7ft seas reported.
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According to the justice department, border patrol agents located eight of the originally nine missing migrants after stopping two vehicles tied to the boat incident. The justice department has charged five Mexican nationals in relation to the event. Two were arrested at the beach on charges of “Bringing in Aliens Resulting in Death” and “Bringing in Aliens for Financial Gain”, while three were arrested later with charges of “Transportation of Illegal Aliens”.
Smuggling off the California coast has long been a risky alternative for migrants to avoid heavily guarded land borders. In 2023, eight people were killed when two migrant smuggling boats approached a San Diego beach amid heavy fog. One boat capsized in the surf. It was one of the deadliest maritime smuggling cases in waters off the US coast.
Human rights groups such as Human Rights Watch, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and Amnesty International have stated that strict border policies drive people around the world to riskier routes, resulting in increased death and human rights abuses.
