Boat with more than a dozen migrants sinks off Colombia

BOGOTA – Rescue workers in Colombia were searching for five migrants missing after their boat carrying 16 people sank as it tried to reach Panama. Two bodies have been found.

The sinking was reported on Monday by officials in Acandi, a municipality along the Gulf of Uraba, an inlet of the Caribbean sea that is lined with dense jungle. Thousands of undocumented migrants cross the gulf each year on small boats.

Colombia’s navy confirmed the shipwreck off the coast of Acandi. It said nine of the migrants were rescued and the bodies of two migrants were recovered from the wreck, while five were still unaccounted for.

Migrants travelling through the Uraba region are mostly trying to make it to the United States. Many come from Cuba and Haiti. But it is also common to see migrants from Africa and Asia along this route.

Earlier municipal government officials in Acandi had said 28 migrants were on the sunken boat.