capsized

Before 50-year-old Princess Mills drowned, the preacher and teacher often traversed the northern islands to spread the gospel message, after teaching students in Family and Consumer Studies at SC Bootle High School.

When friends and family found out that she died tragically after a boat in which she was a passenger overturned early Thursday morning, they were in disbelief.

“I tried not to believe this as I fought internally with so many emotions…This is a tough pill to swallow,” cousin Elon Elcaro said.

“My beautiful, anointed, powerful, rare, phenomenal, supernatural, believing cousin,” he lamented.

Mills was in Freeport for a church service where she danced and preached, after which, she called a ferry boat to carry her back to Abaco where she planned to spend the Easter holidays with her husband and son in Moore’s Island.

But before she could arrive, the 20ft Grady boat capsized. Mill’s lifeless body was found floating near the vessel as the 19-year-old boat captain who always ferried her to the various islands, was found clinging to the vessel after 2 am.

Her father Jonathan Stuart reminisced, “Everybody really loved her.”

Stuart helped her load the boat with her belongings before her departure from McClean’s Town, after which she kissed him and said, “Daddy I’ll see you when you get home.”

Friend Terrece Isabella who also taught at SC Bootle High School said it was typical of Mills to take boat rides at night to partake in various church services in Marsh Harbour, Eleuthera and Freeport.

“There were no seasons in my life in the last 20-plus years, that she didn’t show up, and show up she did.

“Princess [Mills] was gentle, radical in faith, sacrificial and motherly. I witnessed Princess giving people the last that she had. Oftentimes, people were quick to take advantage of her generosity and loving nature, without regard for her sacrifices.

Isabella said Mills was the epitome of selflessness. “She fed and provided for those she believed needed her.

“She never put herself first. It was just Princess—a giver.”

Former student, Devon Cooper said, “This cut me deep. From high school, I always knew her to be an example of a true woman of God.”

While another student Krizstina Rutherford described her as “the best Home Economic teacher anyone could possibly ask for.”

Twenty-two-year-old Columbian native, Juan Esteban is the sole survivor of the human smuggling ordeal where all of the passengers died during the passage from Bimini to Florida.

Thirty-nine people died in Florida waters on their way from Bimini when the boat capsized.

Esteban described the horrific ordeal on Tuesday at a press conference in Miami where he was reunited with his mother after 11 years.

Esteban said he made the trip with his sister María Camila, who also perished because they were promised that the route –flying into the Bahamas where no visa is required then two short boat rides to Florida, was easier and less dangerous than the Mexico transit.

The Bimini passage to Florida is becoming a popular transit point for human smuggling. In recent times, boats that traversed the route have capsized with missing passengers who have not been recovered.

Of the 39 passengers, authorities found five bodies, but not María Camila.

Juan Esteban said, “They tell you, you’ll be in Miami in three, four hours… It’s all a lie.”

Immigration officials did not detain Esteban but permitted him to join his mother where he will seek political asylum.

He did not say how much he paid for the journey which he said included people from Haiti, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and the Dominican Republic. He said one woman held a baby girl.

“That seemed bad to me, but I had such a desire to get to the country,” Esteban said.

When the boat capsized, he said, one by one, those left in the water began drifting away from the vessel, some dying, others so exhausted they didn’t have the strength to hold on any longer, he said.

By early Monday evening, nearly two days after departing, he was alone.

Dehydrated, he was found by a tugboat that spotted him atop the capsized vessel. He was rescued, hospitalized, and released to the care of his mother.