By NICO SCAVELLA

Tribune Staff Reporter

nscavella@tribunemedia.net

AN Inagua-based fisherman yesterday described the “traumatising” moment that a group of stranded Haitians that he and his two friends were helping allegedly hijacked their boat at knifepoint and forced them to jump overboard to avoid being killed.

Lawrence Handfield, 49, said that he, Quinton Smith and Eddington Burrows Jr were all forced to abandon their fishing vessel to avoid being injured, fatally or otherwise, by 10 knife-wielding Haitian men they were transporting to another location on the island.

Mr Handfield said as a result, he and his two friends were forced to swim for at least a mile to get to land, and then when they made it to shore safely, they spent four hours walking for miles before they made contact with locals.

“They was trying to kill us, because they was swinging (the machetes),” Mr Handfield told The Tribune of their assailants. “They was trying to kill us.

“. . .We put up a fight, but they was just…I don’t understand what they was saying, because they was speaking Creole…But they was just gunning for us and they was swinging, trying to jook us up (sic).”

Mr Handfield’s account came after reports that three young Bahamian fishermen were hijacked by a group of Haitian nationals went viral on social media last week. Police in Inagua yesterday confirmed the reports, adding that the three men who were hijacked are “well known” in the Inagua community. However police did not provide further information.

Based on when Mr Handfield said they were attacked, the incident occurred less than two days after the Royal Bahamas Defence Force (RBDF) reported discovering some 80 people believed to be Haitian migrants in bushes along the coastline of the south-eastern end of Inagua last Tuesday night.

On closer inspection, a 30-foot, wooden, low-profile Haitian migrant vessel was discovered with 10 persons onboard. RBDF officials said those persons were to be taken to Mathew Town, Inagua, and handed over to the Department of Immigration officials for further processing.

The Tribune made contact with Mr Smith yesterday, but he said he preferred to not talk about the incident. That led this newspaper to contact Mr Handfield, who described in detail what transpired on that day.

He explained that on that Thursday morning, he and Messrs Smith and Burrows set out to sea on a fishing trip off the eastern part of the island. While fishing, he said they noticed two Haitian men standing on the shoreline. Mr Handfield said he and his two mates consequently decided to lend them a helping hand, something he said they “normally do”.

Mr Handfield said when they made it to the shoreline and spoke with the two men, they told them there were two Haitian women by their boat that had broken down. Mr Handfield said the men asked for assistance, and they obliged.

Mr Handfield said when the group made it to where the boat was, they did not see any women. Mr Handfield said he and his friends asked the Haitian men where the two women were, who in turn replied that the females had since walked off.

After that, Mr Handfield said he noticed “these heads popping up”. At least eight more Haitians appeared where they were, he said.

Nonetheless, he said, he and his friends tried to help the Haitian men get their boat back up and running. He said the Haitians already had the engine off, so they tried getting the engine to start again. When that futile, Mr Handfield said he and his friends told them that the best they could do for them was take them “to where the other Haitians was, because the Defence Force and the Coast Guard was coming to get them.”

Mr Handfield said the Haitian men agreed, and so they boarded their boat and set out to sea to take them to the area in question.

Then, Mr Handfield said things took a turn for the worst.

He explained that Mr Smith was at the boat’s bow, while he and Mr Burrows were at the stern, busying themselves with trying to remove the boat’s drain plug. All of a sudden, he said, he heard when Mr Smith screamed out, and when he and Mr Burrows turned around, they saw one of the Haitian men in a struggle with his friend.

Mr Handfield said Mr Smith won that brief struggle by managing to throw his assailant overboard. However, he said as soon as Mr Smith did that, another Haitian was upon him.

“The other one was behind him with the knife trying to jook (sic) him,” Mr Handfield explained.

“So (Mr Smith) end up jumping overboard. That’s when the next set come dash at me and Eddington.”

Mr Handfield said he and Mr Burrows put up a “brief struggle” with their assailants, who were brandishing machetes, but said they were quickly overpowered as they were outnumbered, and unarmed. As a result, he said, he and Mr Burrows jumped into the water to avoid being injured.

The hijackers, meanwhile, sped off in their boat, which he said contained their gas, about four Grouper fish they had caught, and some crawfish.

“They take everything,” Mr Handfield said. “The only thing we was left with was the clothes we had on.”

Mr Handfield said at that point, he and Messrs Smith and Burrows were at least a mile out to sea. So he said the trio ended up swimming to shore. Once safely on land, Mr Handfield said they trekked for several hours before encountering some other locals, who tended to them and took them back into town.

The Tribune tried contacting senior police officials on the island for comment, but were unsuccessful up to press time.

Nonetheless, Mr Handfield told The Tribune that the incident left him and his friends shaken up. He said while talking to different people about the ordeal has helped him to cope with the trauma, the memories of the incident continue to haunt him.

“I don’t sleep at night,” he said. “I barely sleep. At nights, when I go to sleep, that replays in my mind and I just keep jumping up. So I don’t get good sleep at night no more.”

Mr Handfield said adding to the trauma of the entire ordeal was the fact that his two young children were traumatised as well.

“They were shaken up,” he said. “They called me crying.”

Mr Handfield said going forward, he won’t go fishing unless he’s armed with a licensed firearm.

“I’m not going to go back to sea like that again without a weapon, no,” he said when asked.

He added: “Way out there, they could have killed us, and then nobody even know nothing, because everybody just know we just gone out diving and was coming right back.”