Cuban coast guard officials fatally shot a suspected migrant smuggler who remained unidentified a full day later and arrested two others after confronting them in an apparent operation to ferry 39 migrants out of the country on a US-registered speedboat.
The Communist Party daily Granma on Thursday said the confrontation occurred the previous morning near Cuba's southern coast in the western province of Pinar del Rio.
The coast guard official in charge ordered officers to open fire after the three-man crew aboard the 12-meter boat failed to stop as ordered and launched "violent sudden attacks" on a coast guard vessel, damaging the craft and almost causing it to overturn, the report said.
It said that two men aboard the US-based boat were wounded by gunfire and taken to a local hospital, where one died on Wednesday afternoon. The identity of the dead man was not immediately known because he reportedly carried no documents and the other crew members refused to cooperate.
The two men carried US passports identifying them as Rafael Mesa Farinas and Rosendo Salgado Castro, Granma said.
Drew Blakeney, spokesman for the US Interests Section in Havana, said US authorities had confirmed the names of the two surviving men and that they were US citizens. He said they were seeking consular access to them in custody. But Blakeney said they had not confirmed the identity nor the citizenship of the dead man.
US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said that authorities were trying to ascertain what happened, and if the dead man turned out to be an US citizen it would be "deeply disturbing."
Cuban authorities blamed Wednesday's confrontation on US migration policies they say encourage its citizens to undertake risky journeys to get to the US.
Ninoska Perez Castellon, spokeswoman for the Miami-based Cuban Liberty Council, blamed the communist government, accusing it of tolerating illegal migrant smuggling.
"The Cuban government has the authority to let them go in and out," she said. "For anybody to believe that all those people are coming in and out without the government getting a cut is ridiculous."
But she also blamed the smugglers, saying they often bring 30 or 40 people on a boat made for six, charging them around US$10,000 each.
Granma said the passports of the two surviving men showed they recently visited Mexico, where Cuban authorities believe they had planned to take a boatload of migrants.
Cuban authorities later took 39 people they believe had been scheduled to leave the island on the speedboat into custody: 20 men, 12 women and seven children.
Most of the women and children were released, but some men remained in custody pending further questioning, the newspaper said.
Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss, the stepsister of teenage diarist Anne Frank and a tireless educator about the horrors of the Holocaust, has died. She was 96. The Anne Frank Trust UK, of which Schloss was honorary president, said she died on Saturday in London, where she lived. Britain’s King Charles III said he was “privileged and proud” to have known Schloss, who cofounded the charitable trust to help young people challenge prejudice. “The horrors that she endured as a young woman are impossible to comprehend and yet she devoted the rest of her life to overcoming hatred and prejudice, promoting kindness, courage, understanding
US President Donald Trump on Friday said Washington was “locked and loaded” to respond if Iran killed protesters, prompting Tehran to warn that intervention would destabilize the region. Protesters and security forces on Thursday clashed in several Iranian cities, with six people reported killed, the first deaths since the unrest escalated. Shopkeepers in Tehran on Sunday last week went on strike over high prices and economic stagnation, actions that have since spread into a protest movement that has swept into other parts of the country. If Iran “violently kills peaceful protesters, which is their custom, the United States of America will come to
‘DISRESPECTFUL’: Katie Miller, the wife of Trump’s most influential adviser, drew ire by posting an image of Greenland in the colors of the US flag, captioning it ‘SOON’ US President Donald Trump on Sunday doubled down on his claim that Greenland should become part of the US, despite calls by the Danish prime minister to stop “threatening” the territory. Washington’s military intervention in Venezuela has reignited fears for Greenland, which Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex, given its strategic location in the arctic. While aboard Air Force One en route to Washington, Trump reiterated the goal. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it,” he said in response to a reporter’s question. “We’ll worry about Greenland in
PERILOUS JOURNEY: Over just a matter of days last month, about 1,600 Afghans who were at risk of perishing due to the cold weather were rescued in the mountains Habibullah set off from his home in western Afghanistan determined to find work in Iran, only for the 15-year-old to freeze to death while walking across the mountainous frontier. “He was forced to go, to bring food for the family,” his mother, Mah Jan, said at her mud home in Ghunjan village. “We have no food to eat, we have no clothes to wear. The house in which I live has no electricity, no water. I have no proper window, nothing to burn for heating,” she added, clutching a photograph of her son. Habibullah was one of at least 18 migrants who died
RSS