Over 39 people went missing after a boat capsizes off the coast of Florida

The US Coast Guard has called for and launched a search operation to look for 39 people that went missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Florida in a "suspected human trafficking and smuggling venture," it said Tuesday.

Over 39 people went missing after a boat capsizes off the coast of Florida, Picture credit:IANS

Miami: The US Coast Guard has called for and launched a search operation to look for 39 people that went missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Florida in a “suspected human trafficking and smuggling venture,” it said Tuesday.

The US Coast Guard in Miami has disclosed that it had received a piece of information from a “good Samaritan” who has rescued a man “hanging on to a capsized vessel approximately 45 miles east of Fort Pierce Intel.”

According to a survivor who has been saved and rescued from the spot, the boat had left Bimini in the Bahamas on Saturday night but suddenly encountered harsh weather and capsized.

While victimizing the situation, the statement further said, “No one on the vessel was wearing a life jacket.”

According to the statement released, which was posted on Twitter, “US Coast Guard air and surface asset crews are actively leading a search operation to trace people in the water. It is a suspected human smuggling venture.”

The US Coast Guard has shared a picture showing the capsized boat in the water with a man sitting on the top of the hull of a vessel.

Human smugglers have planned to use the Bahamas, along with several other islands situated on the outskirts of the Florida coast, as a jumping-off point for getting people, many of who hails from the Caribbean nations like Haiti, into the United States.

Bimini, the district lying at the westernmost tip of the Bahamas and its nearest point to the mainland, is around 130 miles (217 kilometres) from Fort Pierce Inlet.