An overloaded boat carrying 240 Haitian migrants was interdicted near the Turks and Caicos Islands on Sunday as Haiti’s humanitarian crisis deepens amid escalating gang violence and continued forced deportations from neighboring countries.

The small vessel was stopped by the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Customs and Border Protection Air and Marine Operations, and surface and air units of the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force, the Coast Guard said in a statement.

Video shared by the Coast Guard show the small boat, with Haitians sitting on its sides, rocking in rough seas as a Coast Guard cutter approached.

“We strongly advise anyone considering participating in an unlawful maritime migration attempt to reconsider,” said Lt. Chelsea Garcia, Coast Guard deputy director of operations for the Bahamas Turks and Caicos. “These journeys are extremely hazardous, frequently involving severely overcrowded and unseaworthy vessels that are often taking on water and lack basic life-saving equipment. We encourage all individuals to pursue safe, legal, and orderly avenues for migration rather than risking their lives at sea.”

The interdiction comes as Haiti’s displacement crisis enters into an alarming phase. The United Nations International Organization for Migration says nearly 1.5 million people have been forced to flee their homes across the country, more than half of them women and girls, as armed groups continue to force families to abandon their residences in urban and rural areas.

“The crisis is no longer confined to specific neighborhoods or regions,” said Gregoire Goodstein, the migration agency’s chief of mission in Haiti. “As violence spreads into areas once considered safe, more and more people are being forced to flee repeatedly, often with nowhere left to turn.”

The record number reflects a rapidly worsening humanitarian crisis marked by repeated waves of displacement, the agency said. More than 18,000 people fled renewed violence in Port-au-Prince’s Cité Soleil neighborhood in May, while 5,000 were displaced in recent weeks in Haiti’s southeastern region, an area once considered a refuge for those escaping from other regions.

The growing crisis is being compounded by the continued forced returns of Haitians from abroad. Since the beginning of this year, more than 110,000 Haitians have been deported from the neighboring Dominican Republic, the United States, The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands.

“Upon return, many arrive with no resources and limited support, often to communities already struggling to absorb new arrivals or to areas affected by armed group activity,” the U.N. migration agency said. “Vulnerable profiles remain prominent among returnees, including unaccompanied children, pregnant women and postpartum women, who continue to be received in fragile and often unsafe conditions, with limited access to basic services and protection.”

With the Atlantic hurricane season already under way, U.N. aid organizations warn that conditions could get worse. Flooding and severe weather threatens already fragile living conditions, particularly in overcrowded displacement sites where people already report critical shortages of shelter, food, clean water, healthcare and social support.

Migrant voyage

The U.S. Coast Guard said it was alerted about the unlawful migrant voyage when its command center received a report of an overloaded vessel taking on water 15 miles south of the Turks and Caicos Islands, a British dependent territory.

A Coast Guard air crew from Miami was diverted to the area and helped guide two Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force and Turks and Caicos Islands Regiment marine units to the scene. Additional marine units arrived and to two the vessel. The migrants were subsequently taken into custody by the Turks and Caicos Border Force.

At the time of the incident, helicopters could be seen flying in the Turks & Caicos island of Providenciales from the direction of the international airport toward Five Cays, a popular landing site for migrant boats arriving from Haiti.

©2026 Miami Herald. Visit at miamiherald.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.