MADRID, Spain.- Four Cubans were detained by the island’s government after being deported this week. They were transferred “to the investigative bodies because they were found to be alleged perpetrators of serious criminal acts, which were being investigated since before their illegal departures,” said the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), quoted by the official media.
The Cubans had been repatriated in a group of 108 rafters this January 31 from the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas and the United States.
Regarding the returns, corresponding to three operations, MININT specified: In the morning an aircraft from the Cayman Islands arrived in Cuba with 20 people (15 men, three women and two minors); Later, the United States Coast Guard Service returned another 50 (42 men and eight women) through the port of Orozco, Bahía Honda, in the province of Artemisa. In the afternoon, 38 people (30 men, seven women and one minor) were returned from the Bahamas by air.
Most of the returnees are from the provinces of Villa Clara, Matanzas, Ciego de Ávila and Camagüey.
So far in 2023, 23 operations of this type have been carried out, for a total of 1,901 migrants repatriated from the Cayman Islands, Bahamas, Mexico and by the United States Coast Guard.
Since October 2022, the beginning of this fiscal year, to date, the crews of the US Coast Guard have intercepted more than 5,000 Cuban rafters, a figure close to that registered during the previous fiscal year, when they were detained 6 182.
On January 24, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) published a report of the Missing Migrants Project that reported on the death or disappearance at sea of at least 69 Cuban migrants during 2022.
The document highlighted that many of these people died trying to reach US territory.
The main cause of death of migrants was drowning caused by bad weather conditions, which make navigation difficult and the use of precarious boats or those that are not suitable for navigation on the high seas.
