417 Refugees on Boat Repatriated by U.S.

The largest group of Haitians to be repatriated in two years made a disappointed return to Port-au-Prince, four days after their overcrowded freighter almost made it to Miami Beach. “I thought we’d make it, and now I could just kill myself,” said Rose Marie Cherise, an unemployed nurse and one of 417 Haitians who had crowded aboard a rickety freighter for the dangerous 600-mile crossing from Haiti to Florida. She said she was bitterly disappointed after the boat was intercepted by the U.S. Coast Guard within sight of shore. The freighter led four U.S. Coast Guard boats on a wild chase across the Straits of Florida after it was sighted Thursday, stopping only after it was nudged by a Coast Guard cutter.