By KEILE CAMPBELL 

Tribune Staff Reporter 

kcampbell@tribunemedia.net

THE family of Shadrack Stuart says it is facing nearly $17,000 in costs to retrieve his body from Haiti, after the Bahamian man was killed in a suspected drug operation earlier this month.

From paying locals to pull stuart’s body from the sea, to morgue fees and inter-island transport, the family claims they have been left to manage the process alone, with no firm assistance from Bahamian officials.

“They asking for money for everything,” said Stuart’s wife, Lloyann Stuart. “We had to pay ourselves to some Haitian people just for them to get my husband body out of the sea and treat his body.”

She said the body was initially left floating in the water before someone contacted the family. “When they showed them, they just left them just like that, in the water, floating,” she said.

The family was asked to send “a couple $100” to get the body removed and taken to a morgue. She said another $2,500 was reportedly requested to secure a death certificate and paperwork, followed by a demand for $4,500 to transfer the body to Port-au-Prince for embalming.

With airfare estimated at around $10,000, the family says the overall cost is spiralling.

“When they asking for all this other set of money just to deal with the body and the paperwork before we get the money for the plane, it’s just so much,” Mrs Stuart said.

She described the ordeal as devastating –– emotionally, financially, and logistically. “It’s hard. It’s hard now. We just trying to do what we could do, and having no money like that is really rough,” she said.

She said the family has reached out to Bahamian officials for support but received no clear answers.

“No one is calling us,” she said.

Meanwhile, they worry that time is running out. “My husband’s body just decaying, and there’s no freezer like that to keep the body,” she said.

Mr Stuart was one of three Bahamian men who died off the coast of Haiti in an incident believed to involve a maritime drug operation. Footage circulated online showing injured men and bodies adrift at sea. Relatives confirmed Mr Stuart’s identity through those images.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has acknowledged difficulties in getting timely updates from Haitian officials. The full circumstances of the men’s deaths remain under investigation.