MIAMI, United States. – The United States Coast Guard prevented this Wednesday that a boat with about four Cubans on board disembarked in Big Pine Key, according to reported on Twitter the organism itself.
Every week, dozens of Cubans approach the Florida coast, 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.
From the beginning of the current fiscal year (October 1, 2022) and until mid-December, Coast Guard crews intercepted 3,370 Cubans trying to reach the northern country.
Already in that short period, the figure represented more than half of the rafters detained during the past fiscal year, in which 6,182 Cuban migrants were detained.
At the beginning of this week it transpired that Coast Guard teams were searching for nine Cubans who shipwrecked off the coast of Lake Worth, a city in Palm Beach County, according to reported the US agency on Twitter.
The Coast Guard was notified of the shipwreck by one of the survivors, rescued this Sunday at approximately 3:30 pm on the beach of Lake Worth.
The survivor reported that he and nine other rafters left Cuba on December 10 in a ship that capsized early Sunday morning.
“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 alerted Cuban rafters that it would reinforce surveillance in the Straits of Florida, with a view to confronting the increase in irregular maritime migration.
The diplomatic legation on the island published on its social network account Twitter several tweets accompanied by a statement, in which he assures that the migration crisis has become a National Security concern.
“The Joint Homeland Security Task Force increased its operational posture to address a recent increase in irregular maritime migration. Agencies are increasing patrols and law enforcement by land, air and sea, day and night,” reads one of the Embassy publications.
The immigration agreements between Cuba and the US establish that people who are intercepted on the high seas will be returned to the island.
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