The United States Coast Guard returned 26 Cuban rafters who were captured at sea while trying to illegally enter the country near the Florida Keys.
The agency reported that last Tuesday, May 14, a boat from the Islamorada station spotted the migrants on board a rustic vessel near Crocker Reef.
The station teams intercepted the Cuban boat and transferred them to the Coast Guard cutter Seneca, where they were given food, water, and basic medical care.
Finally, everyone was returned to Cuba on Friday, May 17 on the Cutter Paul Clark.
The Cuban Ministry of the Interior (MININT) revealed that the 26 rafters had left illegally from Villa Clara and had been sailing for three days when they were intercepted by US authorities.
They reported that there were 40 operations with 571 individuals returned in 2024, from various countries in the region," detailed the MININT on their Twitter account on Saturday, May 18.
On that same day, seven other Cuban rafters who managed to reach land in Cayo Largo were detected and detained by United States Border Patrol (USBP) agents in the Miami sector.
Samuel Briggs II, chief agent of the USBP in the Miami sector, reported on the incident in a post on Twitter, where he warned that "illegal maritime migration ventures during these sweltering temperatures are extremely dangerous and potentially deadly."
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