Of the 66 aboard the Yola, 5 migrants and those abandoned in waters west of Puerto Rico died.

The Coast Guard informed Efe that at least five migrants died this Thursday in waters near Mona Island, west of Puerto Rico, when they were abandoned by a boat carrying them to the United States.

Ricardo Castrodad, a spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard in Puerto Rico, said 66 others, 41 males and 25 femalesThe passengers in the same boat managed to save themselves and reached the island.

“They left them before they reached the shore The boat left the spot“, Castrodad said, noting that the migrants were abandoned on the beaches of Punta Arenas.

The official indicated that officials from Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources Mona Island They landed at 08:36 (12:36 GMT) and alerted federal authorities that they were the ones who recovered the five bodies.

Following the alert, Coast Guard and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents in Cabo Rojo (southwest) and Aguadilla (northwest) activated helicopters and boats to participate in the rescue operation.

It is not known who died and who survived.

“We can only speculate that they are Haitians, but Dominicans,” CBP spokesman in Puerto Rico Jeffrey Quiñones told EFE.

The so-called Mona Canal separates the Dominican Republic from Puerto Rico and is a common migration route through which Dominicans and Haitians attempt to illegally enter the United States.

Eleven Haitian women were killed when a boat capsized in that area, north of the Puerto Rican islands of Tesachio, on May 12.

Coast Guard They managed to rescue 38 people aliveBut search and rescue efforts failed to locate at least ten more migrants, who were also estimated to be aboard the boat.