The story behind the image of this only survivor of overturned migrant boat

The image of a lone survivor on the hull of an overturned migrant boat in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Florida has gone viral.

Friday, 28th January 2022

The story behind the image of this only survivor overturned migrant boat

The image of a lone survivor on the hull of an overturned migrant boat in the middle of the ocean off the coast of Florida has gone viral. Juan Esteban Montoya, 22, from Colombia, according to BBC Mundo. Montoya, who was rescued on Tuesday after spending hours afloat, claimed he and 39 other individuals left the Bahamas before daybreak on Sunday. He was on his way to Brazil with his younger sister, Mara Camila, who perished in the shipwreck. The US Coast Guard recovered 5 bodies from the sea before calling it a day at dusk on Thursday, after searching a sea area the size of New Jersey. A commercial vessel discovered a man clinging to the hull of a boat 45 miles (72 kilometres) from Fort Pierce, Florida, on Tuesday, alerting authorities. According to US officials, the ship may have been involved in a "people smuggling business." Montoya, who hails from the Colombian village of Guacar in the Cauca Valley, claims that none of the 40 passengers were wearing a life jacket. On Tuesday, he was rescued when the captain of the tugboat Signet Intruder noticed him in difficulty. "At 8:05 we brought him on board and he was treated immediately, since he was dehydrated, and we gave him water and some soft food," the operations manager of the Signet shipping business in Florida told BBC Mundo's Atahualpa Amerise. He was exhausted and distraught. "He informed us there were 40 people in all in his boat, including himself, and that they left Bimini at midnight on Saturday and travelled for four hours before the ship capsized due to bad weather." Mr Montoya warned the crew that some 20 of them would have spent hours clinging to the hull's wreckage. The event happened on a "regular" human smuggling route from the Bahamas into the southern US, according to Captain Jo-Ann Burdian, the head of the Coast Guard's Miami sector. A severe cold front, big waves, and strong winds accompanied the weather on Sunday.