Authorities from the states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo were warned by the National Migration Institute (INM) of the arrival of Cuban rafters in the Mexican Caribbean. This Wednesday a boat was abandoned on the beach known as El Secreto, in the Riviera Maya.
El Secreto is 48 kilometers south of Cancun, so the “crew members had to have support to leave the place in vehicles,” he tells 14ymedio the police chief, Raúl Tassinari. “They adapted a car engine to the boat and we still found drums with gasoline and clothing.”
The discovery of the boat occurs the same day that representatives of the INM held a meeting with personnel from the Cuban consulate in Cancun, in which cooperation and coordination on migration matters were discussed. Tassinari confirms that only in February three events related to Cuban rafters have been reported.
“The Navy was informed of the vessel so that it could be secured, as well as the port captaincy and Immigration were notified,” underlines the officer, who does not rule out the deployment in the coming days of elements of the National Guard and the Army to stop the entry of migrants through Quintana Roo.
According to figures from the INM, the state of Quintana Roo has become a route for the illegal entry of Cubans in recent years. Between October and December 2021, 29 rafters who arrived at Isla Mujeres were detained. Of 60 Cubans detained in that same year, 45 were deported and 15 received legal advice to obtain refuge.
On February 12, another boat was abandoned on the eastern coast of the island area of Isla Mujeres, at the height of the Colegio de Bachilleres. The state police confirmed to this newspaper that the migrants “got into a truck, so the surveillance cameras are already being checked.” The island’s natives left medicines, 200-liter drums, canned food in bags, as well as men’s and women’s clothing on the raft.
Ten days earlier, personnel assigned to the Fifth Naval Region rescued seven Cuban rafters, who were shipwrecked 43 nautical miles northeast of Isla Contoy. The migrants were transferred to the Puerto Juárez naval station. A Migration source indicates that this group would be deported.
In last Januarymembers of the Navy in the city of Cancun detained seven Cubans in the boulevard near the Plaza Kukulcán shopping center, after the undocumented immigrants were captured by the video surveillance cameras of the C5 Security Complex. The alert of the arrival of rafters was also extended to the state of Yucatan, confirmed the Riviera Maya official.
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