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By Aaron McDade
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Juan Esteban Montoya Caicedo, the lone survivor of a boat that capsized earlier this month off the coast of Florida while transporting 40 migrants to the U.S., said Monday he watched at least a dozen others decide they couldn't hold onto the capsized boat any longer until he was the only one left.
"I hope that God has something very big for me since my heart is now broken," he said at a press conference Monday, speaking in Spanish according to The Associated Press. "A part of me was taken."
Montoya, 22, said he was traveling with his 18-year-old sister, María Camila Montoya Caicedo, to reunite with their mother, who has lived in the U.S. for over 10 years, according to The Washington Post.
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Montoya said they traveled from their home in Colombia to Bimini in the Bahamas, where they departed January 22 on a boat among a group of 40 migrants, including multiple children, from the Dominican Republic, Bahamas, Jamaica and Haiti, the AP reported.
Sometime the next day, the motor on the boat stopped working, Montoya said, and it was floating for about four hours before a wave capsized the 25-foot vessel, separating him from his sister before he saw her one more time.
"I managed to see her again. But as I went to her to help her, the rest of the people were grabbing her. Everybody was holding on to everybody. That's why she drowned," he said according to the AP.
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Montoya said about 15 people remained holding onto the boat, but as the hours passed that number dwindled until he was the only one left holding onto the boat.
"What we were going through was so difficult, some people let go," he said, the AP reported. "The lack of food, the lack of water and lack of rest affects you, and it led them to go that route."
He said a few others remained holding onto the boat by January 24, but when he was found the next day, Montoya was the only one who remained. The AP reported that Montoya said he spent most of his time in the water where it was warmer, but the night of January 24 he climbed on top of the upside-down boat, where he was spotted by a merchant ship the next day.
Naimeh Salem, Montoya's attorney, said Monday that Montoya would apply for political asylum but could not say more about his case, the AP reported.
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