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6-year-old Cuban drowns en route to Florida

Posted on: Thursday, 13 October 2005, 13:34 CDT

MIAMI (Reuters) - A 6-year-old Cuban boy died on Thursday when he was trapped under a capsized boat that was allegedly smuggling Cubans to Florida, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

A Coast Guard crew spotted the 33-foot (10-meter) speedboat about 45 miles south of Key West and gave chase when the suspected smugglers operating the boat refused to stop, the Coast Guard said.

The pursuers lost sight of the speedboat and found it a short time later, capsized. Thirty people clung to the hull, officials said.

The body of the unidentified boy was found when the capsized boat was righted.

"This terrible incident is an example of the dangers inherent to illegal entry to the United States by seas," Coast Guard Rear Admiral D. Brian Peterman said in a written statement.

Cubans trying to leave their communist-ruled homeland are frequently moved across the Florida Straits by smugglers who drop their human cargo on remote shores in the Florida Keys or on the mainland.

The Coast Guard has interdicted 131 Cubans in October and picked up 2,712 in the previous 12 months.

Under the U.S. "wet foot/dry foot" immigration policy, Cubans stopped at sea are usually taken back to Cuba, while those who manage to set foot on U.S. soil are allowed to stay in the United States.

The best-known case of a young child crossing from Cuba to Florida was that of Elian Gonzalez, who was 5 when he survived a 1999 capsizing in which his mother died.

He became embroiled in an emotional custody battle that ended when the U.S. government seized him from his Miami relatives and returned him to his father, who took him back to Cuba.

Source: REUTERS

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