MIAMI — Twenty people were rescued from the ocean off the Florida Keys on Friday morning after their migrant boat capsized while trying to reach South Florida, authorities said.
After the vessel capsized, said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Estrada, civilian boaters, Coast Guard crews and officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission rescued the people from the water while four others swam to land, he said.
The Coast Guard and other agencies searched Friday for a missing person.
The incident happened less than a mile off the coast of Islamorada, near the well-known Bud N’ Mary’s Marina.
Adam Hoffner, division for U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Miami operations, said he received reports that the vessel was “possibly in distress.”
Other law enforcement sources said some of the people were rescued by civilian boaters in the area.
Later in the day, 45 Cuban migrants arrived in a large wooden fishing boat in the Marquesas Keys, a group of uninhabited islands about 20 miles west of Key West, according to the Border Patrol.
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