Five migrants rescued after 15 days lost at sea ate their dead comrades to stay alive, a Dominican official say.
One of the five, the only woman in the group, died on Sunday in a hospital after the group was found near the Turks and Caicos Islands, said Dominican Minister of Tourism Francisco Javier Garcia.
Garcia said the remaining four, part of a large group of migrants, told him that without food, they ate from the corpse of the last person to die.
A total of 33 Dominican migrants were trying to reach Puerto Rico by boat when they were reported missing by relatives in mid-October. Survivors said they lost their way after the captain abandoned the ship.
Bodies of the other dead were thrown into the sea, Garcia said they told him.
The five migrants were rescued by US Coast Guard helicopter on Saturday and taken to a hospital on the island of Providenciales.
"The other four are dehydrated and have swollen legs but are expected to recover," Garcia said after visiting the survivors with Turks and Caicos Premier Michael Misick.
Many of their relatives presumed they were already dead.
Hundreds of Dominicans take to the sea each year in small boats, many of them homemade, trying to reach Puerto Rico through the dangerous Mona Passage.
In 2004, 36 survivors in a group of 87 migrants drank breast milk, sea water and ate human flesh in desperate acts to survive.
