Four dead, dozens injured after migrant boat capsizes off San Diego coast in US

At least four people have died and over two dozen injured after a suspected smuggling vessel capsized off the coast of San Diego in the US state of California.

US media, quoting local officials, said the vessel carrying 30 people overturned near the Cabrillo National Monument in Point Loma on Sunday.

Initially, reports put the death toll at two, which has now mounted to four, with dozens of others hospitalised. 

James Gartland, a lifeguard chief for San Diego, a city on the Pacific coast of California known for its beaches, was quoted saying that the boat hit the reef and broke up.

“This was a mass rescue operation that turned into a mass casualty incident,” he said.

There were 30 people on the boat, according to reports, and most of them made it to shore on their own.

There’s a massive incident happening on the shore of Cabrillo Nat’l Monument. Officials confirm the Coast Guard, Border Patrol, Navy, Nat’l Park Service and City of San Diego are all responding.

Witness video I saw shows a boat crash along the rocks. I’m working to get info. pic.twitter.com/EmIONvJh9U

— Leah Pezzetti (@leahpezzetti) May 2, 2021

“Our goal was just to rescue everyone we could,” a lifeguard was quoted saying by CNN. “Conditions were pretty rough -- 5-6 feet of surf, windy, cold, the water's around 60 degrees so you get hypothermic pretty quickly.”

According to Jeff Stephenson, supervisor and border patrol agent in the San Diego sector of US Customs and Border Patrol, it was a “smuggling vessel used to smuggle migrants into the US illegally.”

The person believed to be operating the boat is in custody, officials told reporters.

San Diego Mayor Todd Gloria tweeted for "San Diegans to keep the boat's passengers in your prayers."

United States Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced in a news release Friday that it was beefing up patrol operations this weekend to deter smugglers.

Sunday's incident follows the arrest of 21 people off the coast of San Diego early Thursday, according to CBP statement.

They included 15 men and six women who were Mexican nationals with no legal status to enter the country. The two suspected smugglers on board will face federal charges, US media reports said.

This group was found in a small open boat often used for working off the coast of Mexico or Central America, according to the US Coast Guard.  

Joe Biden administration has been under fire over growing humanitarian crisis at the US-Mexico border, with an influx of refugees fleeing violence and economic hardships in Central and South America.

His pledge to end his predecessor’s hardline immigration policies has proved an eyewash so far with his insistence on continuing Trump-era policies that block rights to asylum.

US officials are struggling to house and process an increasing number of unaccompanied children, many of whom have been stuck in jail-like border stations for days while they await placement in overwhelmed government-run shelters.

More than ten thousand children, including those forcibly separated from their parents, are now in the care of the Department of Health and Human Services as US officials are struggling to process them.

Earlier this week, Biden administration announced that it would cancel all construction on the border using diverted military funds, a Pentagon spokesman said.

The former US administration had used military funds to build portions of the border wall along the southern border after Congress refused to approve the construction project in early 2019.

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