CIUDAD VICTORIA, Mexico: Four emaciated and dehydrated migrants were rescued by Mexican fishermen more than a month after they left Cuba on a flimsy raft with several others who died at sea, authorities said.
Two of the survivors remained hospitalized in Mexico’s northeastern state of Tamaulipas on Tuesday with what immigration officials called “severe dehydration.”
According to testimony given to Mexican officials and a Cuban diplomat, who did not wish to be named, the migrants left the island on April 1 hoping to reach the US state of Florida.
But the rudder of the raft broke and they were left stranded.
A local police report indicated that the migrants could have spent as much as two months at sea.
It quoted one of the survivors as saying they left Cuba on March 5.
Images broadcast by local media showed four malnourished men – two of them lying on the ground – along with a raft made of pieces of wood, metal cans and plastic sheeting used as a tarpaulin.
They were found by fishermen who were on their way to work in the Gulf of Mexico, received first aid from Mexican emergency services and taken to a hospital.
According to survivors, four other migrants died during the journey, but Mexican authorities were unable to confirm this information.
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The police report identified the survivors as as Mario Sergio Marquez Ventura, 30, Yuriesky Romero Hernandez, 33, and Rogelio Loasis Fuentes Fernando, 50
A fourth migrant could not be named because of his critical condition.
According to immigration authorities, they expressed a desire to remain in Mexico.
Nearly five percent of Cuba’s population has fled to the United States in the past two years, the largest wave of emigration since Fidel Castro’s revolution.
The communist island is in the grip of its worst economic crisis in decades, with sky-high inflation and shortages of fuel, medicine and basic food – and US sanctions – exacerbating an already dire situation.
