MADRID, Spain.- The United States Embassy in Havana described the sinking, by the island’s authorities, of the boat in Bahía Honda that was transporting Cuban migrants as an “accident”.
“The United States sends our condolences to the families of the Cubans who died today in an accident north of Bahía Honda,” the consular headquarters said through Twitter.
The entity also pointed out that safe and legal migration routes are being expanded.
“We warn against attempting dangerous and sometimes fatal irregular migration,” the Embassy added.
In comments to the publication, the activist Yannis Estrada wrote: “Not that they died: that they were murdered, the sea is too wide for two boats to collide like this.”
The United States sends our condolences to the families of the Cubans who died today in an accident north of Bahía Honda. As we expand safe and legal pathways for migration, we warn against attempting dangerous and sometimes fatal irregular migration.
— Embassy of the United States in Cuba (@USEmbCuba) October 29, 2022
Like Estrada, a large number of Cubans have condemned the act, which caused the death of a man, three women and a two-year-old girl.
Republican congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar He pointed out that “the Castro/Díaz-Canel regime is solely responsible for these deaths.”
“That is their continuity: they are the same terrorists and bloodthirsty as always. (…) The Cuban people lose again, but Castroism will end soon (…) Those five dead represent the rest of the Cuban people, who only want freedom, that’s why they were leaving, but we are going to make sure that these The dead are not forgotten,” said Salazar.
In its official note, the Cuban Government indicated that “a speedboat from the United States, which violated the territorial sea of Cuba in a human trafficking operation, sank north of Bahía Honda, Artemisa, when it collided with a surface unit of Border Guard Troops during their identification”.
However, the journalist Mario J. Pentonwho spoke with relatives of the deceased and people close to the survivors, reported that the boat of the Cuban migrants at no time resisted the border guards, who attacked them.
According to sources close to Pentón, three people are still missingalthough the island’s regime has not ruled on the matter.
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