Cuban rafters barricade themselves on boat, demanding they be allowed to continue journey
A group of Cubans rescued after evading immigration authorities in the Cayman Islands are refusing to abandon the Panamanian-flagged ship that assisted them, demanding they be taken to Panama in order to continue their journey to the southern border of the United States.
The vessel they are on has been adrift for the past few days and they appear to be weak, but have not sustained any injuries, Cayman Islands Customs and Border Control said in a statement. About a dozen migrants are onboard and have been posting about their odyssey on social media.
Prior to boarding the ship, Cayman authorities had been monitoring 10 of the migrants electronically with ankle bracelets but lost contact with them early Sunday morning, according to Cayman Marl Road, a local news platform. The migrants reportedly disarmed the tracking device and left in a precarious boat. They were then picked up by the MV Bulk Freedom, a freighter, as they drifted about 50 nautical miles west of Grand Cayman, according to CBC.
They have been aboard the ship since Tuesday.
Customs and Border Control said they are doing everything possible to get the Cubans off the ship, but that they refuse.
In a statement, CBC said officers were recently alerted that an infant on board was ill with a fever. Officers made numerous offers to take the mother or the father and the child to the George Town Hospital for treatment, as suggested by the Health Services Authority; however, the parents refused.
“CBC continues to provide the migrants with food, drinking water, baby food for the infant and other necessary supplies,” officials said in a written statement.
CBC refuted claims by the migrants that they are being mistreated by authorities in the Cayman Islands and said they are being cared for in accordance with local policy. The migrants, for their part, are appealing to the international community for assistance and saying they won’t back down.
“They want me to return to the Cayman Islands and we refuse,” said Javier Freites, who joined the migrants along with his wife and young daughter. Freites and his wife, Erica Alvarez-Freites, had been protesting outside government headquarters in Grand Cayman since February demanding that their marriage be recognized and for Alvarez-Freites to be granted residency and employment rights, according to local press. Freites, who successfully petitioned for asylum in the Cayman Islands, had been prevented from adding his wife as a dependent to his immigration status because Cayman’s asylum provision omits extending protection to the spouse of a grantee.
CBC said that the captain of the MV Bulk Freedom has indicated that he is unwilling to transport the migrants to any other port, because the ship cannot accommodate the number of people aboard.
“He is adamant that they must disembark in Cayman,” CBC said.
It is not the first time that Cubans have arrived in the small archipelago located south of Cuba. In late November, a group of Cubans escaped and was later rescued near Isla Mujeres, in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo.
That group was made up of three women and 11 men who “traveled crowded, with little drinking water and in unsanitary conditions at the bottom of a small boat,” according to the National Migration Institute of Mexico. The Cubans had been at sea for more than five days and were transferred by the Navy to the port of the city of Cancun.
Coast Guard officials in the U.S. say they are seeing an uptick in the number of Cuban migrants intercepted at sea as conditions on the island continue to deteriorate.
Miami Herald Caribbean Correspondent Jacqueline Charles contributed to this report.
