At least 19 people were found dead on a boat in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday morning, authorities said.
The aimless vessel was located near the eastern Caribbean nation of St. Kitts and Nevis around 11:30 a.m., the St. Kitts and Nevis Coast Guard said. It was spotted near the smaller, southeastern island of Nevis in the two-island nation.
Part of the boat was submerged, and no one on board was alive, Police Commissioner James Sutton told The Associated Press.
“It was a fishing vessel, which is not typically found in the Caribbean,” Sutton said. “We are not certain, but we believe that this vessel originated off the West African coast.”
The advanced decomposition of the bodies on board made it difficult to tell how many people had traveled on the ship or identify any of the deceased, authorities said. The nation’s coast guard will investigate the discovery.
Though leaders in St. Kitts and Nevis, about 1,200 miles southeast of Miami, said it was a new situation for the nation, similar boats have been discovered in the Caribbean in recent years.
In August 2024, authorities in the Dominican Republic discovered a drifting boat with 14 skeletons on board. Investigators at the time said the deceased were likely from the West African nations of Senegal and Mauritania.
And in May 2021, a boat carrying more than a dozen dead people was spotted near the island of Tobago, also having departed from Mauritania.