MIAMI, United States. — The authorities of the Dominican Republic deported 12 Cuban rafters who had been detained in that country since last December, the digital portal reported on Monday Cuban newspaper.
The fact was confirmed to the independent media by Osnier Ramos Morell, one of the returned migrants. According to the source, the Cubans repatriated on a flight that left the Dominican Republic around two in the afternoon today.
Two of the women who were part of the group of migrants assured that they were deceived by the Dominican authorities.
“Here we are, they brought us here deceived. The Dominican authorities knew that we could not return to Cuba and so they brought us here. They tricked us. They told us that they were going to help us and it was all a lie,” said the migrants while they were still at the Santo Domingo Airport.
The Cubans had arrived in the Dominican Republic in two groups. The first, made up of eight people, arrived in that nation on December 17, 2022. The rafters had been rescued in the Caribbean Sea by a Philippine merchant ship.
Something similar happened with six other rafters from the province of Ciego de Ávila who arrived in the Dominican Republic on December 25 after being picked up by a Philippine merchant ship, although it is unknown if it was the same vessel.
Osnier Ramos Morell had explained to Cuban newspaper that after being detained at the Haina migrant center, all the Cubans were interviewed by telephone.
“They asked if we wanted to tack to Cuba. And we told him that for Cuba not even to gain momentum,” declared Ramos Morell, a native of Isla de la Juventud.
Dominican lawyer Carolyn Adames Delgado, who has already worked on other cases of Cuban migrants, argued that the option of the detained rafters was to take advantage of “the law of the sea” because they were shipwrecked who did not want to return to their country. However, a week after the case was made public, they were deported.
