Twenty-three bodies were pulled from the Caribbean Sea today after a boat with over 40 illegal immigrants from the Dominican Republic sank off the island of St Martin.
Two survivors, a young man and a young women, who were rescued from the sea by fishermen have been hospitalised on the Franco-Dutch island for shock, official sources said.
The boat is thought to have sunk overnight six nautical miles (11 kilometres) southwest of the island. One of the bodies found was wearing a watch which had stopped at 0315 GMT, a witness said.
St Martin police said 48 people had been aboard the vessel when it went down.
Dutch, French and US boats and air-sea rescue teams were searching the area off the Leeward Islands east of the US commonwealth of Puerto Rico for the 23 still missing.
AFP