Santo Domingo, February 21 (RHC) -- A boat carrying about 25 Haitian migrants capsized Thursday off the southeast tip of the Dominican Republic, killing at least three.

Authorities recovered the bodies of three Haitian women and rescued another 10 passengers, while naval units continue to search for more victims.

Survivors included six men and four women, one of them pregnant. All were taken to a hospital in Higuey, 161 km east of the capital Santo Domingo.

The accident occurred early Thursday some 3.2 kilometers off the coast of Bavaro in La Altagracia province, 207 km east of Santo Domingo, area residents said.

The 20 to 25 migrants had departed from Haiti earlier in the morning aboard a boat believed to have been stolen from a hotel in an attempt to reach Puerto Rico in the eastern Caribbean Sea.

Each year, hundreds of migrants from Haiti and other countries in the region try to reach Puerto Rico by crossing the 130-km channel that separates that country from the Dominican Republic.