Nine migrants from Cuba landed on the morning of this Saturday, April 2, in the Mexican port of El Cuyo, a small fishing village in the state of Yucatán, after leaving their country on March 19, according to their accounts.
El Cuyo, with approximately 1,750 inhabitants, is a fishing port located in the extreme northwest of the Aztec nation, almost on the border with the state of Quintana Roo.
The seven men and two women remained at the base of the Municipal Police, waiting for the authorities of the Mexican Institute of Migration. In the meantime they have received medical attention, food, drinks and serum, since some presented dehydration problems, according to local press reports.
Local residents noticed foreign-looking people wandering the beach and reported the incident to the municipal police station.
The “Diario de Yucatán” said that the rafters reported that they had left Cuba on March 19 in their attempt to reach the United States.
After drifting, his boat finally landed on the beach of the small port in the municipality of Tizimín within the Ría Lagartos Biosphere Reserve, on the border with Quintana Roo.
The insured are José Daniel Fife Cobos, 21 years old; Yuriesky Pico Suri, 31 years old; Yonel Gamboa Cobos, 35; Eliobis Esteven Matos, 41; Yarisleydi Pérez Almaguer, 19; Raysel Celada London, 20; Eleydis Payo Velazco, 19; Mainier Miguel Martínez Millán, 29, and Pedro Luis Quintana Fraga, 32. All originally from Matanzas, according to the media outlet “Por Esto”, but it is not known where they left from on the island.
The Cubans said that after several days of crossing, their rustic boat suffered a mishap and sank, and being near the port they swam to shore, according to “Por Esto”, which adds that the raft could not be located. The rafters also did not have belongings to say of this medium.
The Cubans boarded patrol cars and were taken to a barracks to be channeled to the immigration authorities.
Currently there is a tense situation with the wave of irregular migrants in Mexico, including Cubans.
One day before this particular event in Yucatan, parliamentarians from Mexico and Cuba meeting in Havana asked to confront the illegal trafficking of migrants.
And almost coincidentally, members of the migrant caravan, which includes a good number of Cubans along with Venezuelans, Central Americans and Haitians, declared a hunger strike upon arriving in the community of Álvaro Obregón, after clashing twice with agents. of the National Guard (GN) and migration personnel in the city of Tapachula.
The strikers ask the Mexican government to provide them with buses to reach the border with the United States and to grant them visas for humanitarian reasons valid throughout Mexican territory.
Federal authorities detained nearly 200 migrants, including children and pregnant women, segmenting this caravan, according to EFE.
The situation is critical since the authorities of the National Migration Institute (INM) maintain a checkpoint at the main entrance of the community to prevent them from leaving this town.
After arriving in the community, the migrants took shelter in the church of the place where, they said, they will remain as long as necessary, while the authorities carried out tours and operations to search for and secure the foreigners who remain hidden in the surroundings of this community.
This Friday, hundreds of migrants walked from the Mexican border city of Tapachula with the desire to reach Mexico City to regularize their immigration status, but after a few kilometers they collided with federal authorities.
According to the Cuban authorities, until a week ago, 1,370 was the number of citizens of their country who have been returned to the island so far this year for traveling irregularly through countries in the region, including Mexico.
According to the official newspaper Granma, in the first three months of the year, 30 return operations have been carried out, mainly from Mexico, the United States and the Bahamas.
The last of these operations -based on bilateral agreements with neighboring countries- occurred just over a week ago, when Mexico returned to Cuba 104 people who were traveling irregularly to the United States.
Mexico has returned 784 irregular migrants to Cuba so far this year, according to the most recent figure released. The United States has carried out the largest number of return operations for irregular Cuban migrants, with 16, followed by Mexico (11), the Bahamas (2), and the Cayman Islands (1).
The head of the United States Border Patrol, Raúl Ortiz, indicated that 1,500 Cubans were detained last Monday, more than double the daily average in February.
About 7,100 migrants are apprehended trying to cross the border from Mexico daily, US authorities said.
Following the announcement by the Joe Biden administration to end on May 23 the border restrictions that Trump implemented during the pandemic and that effectively blocked the entry of migrants into the United States, the authorities are preparing for greater migratory waves.
