MIAMI, United States. — A boat with 141 Haitian migrants capsized off the southern coast of Cuba, official Cuban media reported this Saturday.
According to reports, the ship capsized off the coast of Cienfuegos province after an eight-day voyage.
Although the objective of the voyage was to arrive in Miami, United States, bad weather meant that the ship ended up on the coast of central-southern Cuba.
Nadezka Carvajal, head of operations for the Red Cross in Cienfuegos province, revealed that the boat was well above its capacity, a fact that, together with bad weather, led to the shipwreck.
The official told the island’s state press that of the 141 people who were on the ship, 22 were children. Also traveling in the same pregnant mothers and older adults.
Cuban state television showed images of the health care received by the migrants, who were transferred to the Ismaelillo camp.
For the third time so far this year, groups of Haitian migrants land on the Cuban coast in their attempt to reach US territory.
Last May some 800 Haitian migrants, including a month-old baby, arrived on the north coast of central Cuba and were later returned to their country of origin. Similar incursions by migrants from that country also occurred in the month of July.
According to data from the Cuban authorities, from 2001 to 2021, a total of 76 boats arrived in the Cuban province of Guantánamo alone with more than 4,000 irregular migrants from Haiti.
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