MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico will free 14 Cuban migrants rescued by its navy this month and will give them permanent residency, a Mexican immigration official said yesterday.
The Cubans were intercepted off the Yucatan peninsula badly sunburned and dehydrated after three weeks adrift at sea, and Mexico’s government said they would likely be deported. They were without food and survived by drinking rain water.
The 14 and another 18 Cubans left Manzanillo in eastern Cuba on August 7 in a homemade boat, relatives of the survivors told Reuters. The boat’s motor broke down after two days and the passengers rigged a makeshift sail.
Relatives said as many as 15 passengers died during the voyage, and their bodies were thrown overboard. Two more died after being rescued.
The Mexican immigration official said the 14 were being released on humanitarian grounds. The decision comes just days after Mexico’s foreign minister visited the Communist-run island.
“Cuba did not recognise its citizens as such, so Mexico will give them a month to regularise their legal situation in the country,” a spokeswoman for the Mexico’s migration department INAMI said.
“They will remain in Mexico as legal residents while they wait for their permanent residency, which they are being given for humanitarian reasons,” she said. Mexico’s foreign ministry had no immediate comment.
One other rescued passenger, who had a relative living in Mexico, was released earlier and is now in the United States.
“It’s a huge relief,” said Jose Caballero, husband of Maylin Perez, one of the women detained in Chetumal, in southern Mexico. “I haven’t been able to eat. It’s been a crazy few weeks. I was so worried they would be sent back to Cuba. If they did that I knew my wife would try and leave again.”
Caballero took the same route by sea from Manzanillo in December, reaching Central America, before taking a bus to the US border. He spoke to Reuters by phone from Texas where he now resides.
“I spoke to my wife this morning. She is happy. Now we just want to get our children out of Cuba,” he added, referring to their son and daughter, aged eight and four, back in Manzanillo, where they are being looked after by relatives.
