Commodore of the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF), Dr. Raymond King appeared at a press briefing at the Office of the Prime Minister on Thursday where he addressed the issue of migration in the country among other subjects.
King told reporters, “the migration rates has increased by 90%. Twenty eight nationalities have been encountered and half of that populations were Haitian nationals. So we’re looking at absolute figures of 1500 migrants detained versus 800 for fiscal year 22.” He listed some of the nationalities encountered as Haitians, Cubans, Jamaicans, Dominicans, Chinese and Ecuadorians.
The Commodore also outlined how this issue in the northern Bahamas is being addressed. “We continue to fortify our presence in that area to stem that we’ve experienced significant success. A number of arrests, may have been six or seven within the last three weeks. I can recall right off there was some, I believe almost 30 Ecuadorians who were found at gun point near Cat Cay and that followed another group of some 15 to 20.”
King said the RBDF will acquire more assets to heighten monitoring in the northern Bahamas. “We want to move beyond the Great Bahama Bank to the northern Bahamas outside of the Little Bahama Bank, the Biminis, Abacos to the extremities of our exclusive economic zone, some 200 nautical miles. Cause evidence suggests, from the software, that those international distant water fleets are doing some work in those areas so we want to have some presence out there as well.”
