At least 40 Haitian migrants killed at sea

“This devastating event underscores the risks faced by children, women and men migrating along irregular routes and demonstrates the urgent need for safe and legal migration routes,” said Grégoire Goodstein, IOM chief in Haiti, in a statement.

The fire occurred the same week that a second contingent of Kenyan police arrived in the Haitian capital, Port-au-Prince, as part of a United Nations-backed international security mission aimed at repelling heavily armed gangs that control at least 80 percent of the city and facilitating new elections.

Gangs killed at least 3,250 people in Haiti from January to May, the UN office in Haiti reported last month, up more than 30 percent from the previous five months. The violence has forced more than 570,000 people to flee.

The security problems have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis in a country that has long suffered from endemic poverty and where about half the population is suffering from acute hunger.

“Haiti’s socioeconomic situation is catastrophic,” Goodstein said. “The extreme violence of the past few months has only further driven Haitians to resort to desperate measures.”

More than 86,000 migrants have been forcibly returned to Haiti by neighboring countries this year, the IOM said.

Several hundred Kenyan police officers have been patrolling the streets alongside the Haitian National Police since arriving in Haiti a few weeks ago, but they have not yet begun operations to pacify gang-controlled neighborhoods.

Dennis B. Hankins, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, said he expected these operations to begin “within the next few weeks.”

As the violence escalated, Haitians often sought refuge at sea, many making risky journeys on rickety boats or other makeshift vessels unsuitable for such travel. A common destination is the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British overseas territory. Others head for the Bahamas or the coast of Florida.

The United States Coast Guard and the Royal Bahamas Defense Force announced Thursday that they were suspending the search for 60 Haitian migrants who may have left the Bahamas for Florida on July 4 on a boat with engine problems.

According to the IOM, collecting figures on the number of people dying at sea is challenging because “sea routes are remote, boats depart in secrecy and information on flight routes is lacking.”

“Many, many boats are leaving (Haiti),” said Antoine Lemonnier, an IOM spokesman in the country. “Many are intercepted by foreign coast guards … and probably many die and we will never know about it.”