The Ministry of the Interior (MININT) assured this Friday that the group involved in the alleged infiltration attempt from the United States initially traveled in two vessels that departed from the vicinity of Cayo Maratón in Florida.
However, they finally arrived in Cuba on a single boat after a mechanical failure occurred in one of them. This statement was made during the special program "Razones de Cuba," where a colonel involved in the investigation explained that the second vessel was left adrift and that its crew and supplies were transferred to the boat that continued the journey.
According to the account presented in the state-run program, this dynamic—two boats at the beginning and one at the end—would be key to understanding why the Cuban authorities reported the arrival of only one vessel, despite the fact that two groups would have been moving during the earlier phase of the journey.
In the television intervention, the colonel stated that one of the two vessels experienced a malfunction in its engine, failed to start, and consequently, the occupants transferred "all the resources they had" — including supplies — to the other boat and also moved the people who were operating that vessel.
Then, he said, they left the damaged vessel adrift and continued toward Cuba in the naval means that the MININT identifies as "the infringing vessel."
The official emphasized that for this reason, although two boats left, "they arrive in Cuban territory on a single vessel."
Timeline of the clash on February 25
In the same space, the head of the General Staff of the Border Guard Troops described the timeline of the incident and placed the detection of the naval target at 7:10 a.m. on February 25, when —according to the account— Cuban technical means identified a “suspicious” target within territorial waters.
He explained that an intercepting boat was ordered to go out to verify and identify the target, and that during the approach, the infringing vessel allegedly opened fire.
The officer stated that the captain of the Cuban vessel was injured by gunfire in the abdominal area, and that following the response from the border guards, the infringing boat was neutralized and the injured were transferred to land.
The program also presented expert evidence regarding bullet impacts:
- On the Cuban interceptor boat, the investigation reported having found 13 bullet impacts.
- In the boat arriving from the U.S. that reached Cuba, 21 impacts were reported.
The authorities presented these figures as part of the "forensic technical" material shown on the television program.
What changes (and what doesn't) with the "two boats" version
The novelty of the program is the claim that the operation started with two vessels, although the MININT maintains that only one reached Cuban territory due to the malfunction of the other.
According to that explanation, the supposed transshipment would clarify why the group is attributed with a large quantity of supplies, even though the final arrival was said to have been in a single boat.
The program does not provide verifiable details that would support the version presented by the regime in Cuba.
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