Two Cubans in a boatload of people being smuggled to the US drowned last week when their craft capsized off the island's coast, authorities said on Thursday. Nine other passengers and two smugglers managed to swim to shore.
A note from Cuba's Interior Ministry, read on state television, was Cuba's first official confirmation of the accident off the northern coast of Havana province.
The go-fast boat was carrying 13 people when its motor failed, the note said. The craft then hit a reef and overturned, killing two of the passengers. Authorities believe the two smugglers are hiding in Cuban territory.
Twenty-six people were being held in police custody, including the nine surviving passengers. The rest of those held appeared to be would-be migrants who were turned away from the boat for lack of room.
Earlier on Thursday, the US Coast Guard in Miami said it had received via the US Interests Section in Havana -- the US mission here -- a report from the Cuban Coast Guard about the accident that said two adults had died and 11 people were unharmed.
US Coast Guard Lieutenant Commander Chris O'Neil, public affairs officer for the district in Miami, on Thursday criticized South Florida migrant smuggling operations and what he said was "the tacit or direct protection of the local community."
As long as "people are content to see the lives of their loved ones needlessly endangered by the reckless, negligent and criminal actions of migrant smugglers, migrant smuggling and the human tragedy associated with it will continue in the Florida Straits," O'Neil said in a statement.
The smugglers typically charge relatives up to US$8,000 a head to smuggle their loved ones into the US and often crowd the migrants into boats to make more money.
The Cuban Interior Ministry report identified the dead as Yosvani Vera, a 29-year-old man, and Zuleika Rodriguez, a 43-year-old woman.
"The investigation is continuing into this lamentable accident, which is rooted in the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act that stimulates illegal migration, and the lucrative activities of the mafia," the Interior Ministry said.
Washington's so-called "wet-foot, dry-foot" policy, which springs from the 1966 Cuban Adjustment Act, generally allows Cubans who reach US soil to stay in the country while most Cubans the US Coast Guard picks up at sea are repatriated.
Havana says the policy encourages Cubans to undertake the risky sea voyage.
The US Coast Guard said it had interdicted 3,197 Cuban migrants this year, compared to 2,293 last year.
The Interior Ministry note did not mention another possible tragedy involving Cuban migrants.
The US Coast Guard said it was notified by family members on Dec. 6 that up to 40 Cubans had not been heard from since departing Cuba aboard a migrant-smuggling boat on Nov. 24.
Separately, police detained 21 Cuban migrants who said they had arrived on Honduras' Caribbean coast in a homemade boat.
The 16 men and 5 women were detained on Wednesday in the town of El Porvenir, Honduras' General Office of Criminal Investigation reported.
The migrants said they left Cuba two weeks ago aboard a boat they had constructed themselves and headed toward Honduras, where some of them have relatives.
The Cubans were turned over to Honduran immigration authorities.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS