Castro's Coast Guard sinks boat carrying 32 refugees who were trying to reach Florida

12/22/2014

Survivor says her husband went missing. The other occupants were shipped back to the island. Women and children freed, men still in custody.

One refugee missing after attack by Cuban Coast Guard

Masiel González Castellano, a woman who survived the attack and whose husband is allegedly missing, told reporters in Miami during a telephone conversation from Matanzas, Cuba, that her husband, Leosbel Díaz Beoto, was nowhere to be found after falling overboard.

“We were screaming and crying for help as the boat was sinking. But they ignored us. Instead, they continued charging against our boat. Some people dove in the water and others stayed aboard as the boat sank,” the Miami Herald reported Gonzalez, who was contacted during a press conference hosted in Miami by the Democracy Movement, as saying. “They knew there were children aboard, but continued to charge against us. They didn’t care.”

González said the boat was carrying 32 people, including seven women and two children, onwe of which was her eight-year-old son. After being hit on Tuesday morning, the Cuban Coast Guard rescued most of the survivors, who were then locked up by the State Security in Versailles, Matanzas.

González said she was released on Thursday night with the rest of the women and children. The men remain under custody, she added.

According to Ramón Saúl Sánchez of the Democracy Movement, the incident occurred in international waters, 22 miles away from Cuban territory. On Friday, Sánchez said he contacted the U.S. Coast Guard in Miami, and was given confirmation that a call had been received about a sunken boat and that they reported the incident to the Cuban Coast Guard.

The incident became public just two days after Presidents Barack Obama and Raúl Castro agreed to restore full diplomatic ties between the two countries, with travel restrictions expected to ease down shortly.

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