MIAMI, United States. – The body of a 26-year-old Cuban immigrant was identified by her relatives at a Miami-Dade funeral home, the local network reported Wednesday Univision 23. This is Amarilys Malagón Pérez, who disappeared on September 27 after being shipwrecked in the Straits of Florida.
“We can say without any doubt that he is our relative,” assured Asley Ángel, from the young woman’s family.
“We entered now and we just saw, his tattoos, I looked at him, everywhere, they are the same features, everything, everything, the tattoo is intact (…). It is one hundred percent her”, added Ángel.
After 29 days of anguish and waiting, in Cuba the mother of Amarilys Malagón Pérez received confirmation of the death of her daughter.
The young Cuban shipwrecked during the passage of Hurricane Ian through the Straits of Florida. Malagón Pérez left Matanzas on a raft in which 26 other Cubans were traveling and which was destroyed by the effects of the storm.
Dayana Sosa, director of the National Funeral Home, told Univision that her working group was almost ready to legalize the documentation with Washington DC and proceed with the request for the repatriation of the young woman’s body, which will be buried in Cuba.
Every week, dozens of Cubans approach the coast of Florida, where they are generally intercepted by Coast Guard agents and then deported to the Island. However, many of them perish at sea before reaching land.
Since October 1, 2022, the beginning of the current fiscal year, Coast Guard teams have intercepted nearly 1,000 Cuban migrants.
Just this Wednesday, 32 Cuban migrants were taken into the custody of the US Border Patrol, after making landfall on an island 113 kilometers west of Key West, according to reported on Twitter Officer Walter N. Slosar of the Coast Guard.
On Tuesday, that body repatriated 45 rafters from the Island that had been intercepted trying to reach the Florida coast.
While, last Thursday, agents from the Miami Sector Border Patrol and the Florida Keys Sheriff’s Office intercepted 24 Cubans who made landfall near Marathon, according to reported Walter N. Slosar.
“Illegal migration in rustic and improvised boats without safety equipment, such as a life jacket, is dangerous,” has warned Petty Officer 1st Class Nicole J. Groll, Coast Guard 7th District. “Risking their lives during these adventures causes their loved ones unnecessary anxiety about whether they are safe or lost at sea,” she added.
Recently, the United States embassy in Havana warned Cuban rafters that it would strengthen surveillance in the Straits of Florida, with a view to dealing with the increase in irregular maritime migration.
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