Cuban coast guard kills 4 in US-flagged speedboat

The Cuban Interior Ministry said the US boat fired at the Cuban coast guard, injuring the Cuban commander of the vessel. The incident comes amid heightened tensions between Cuba and the US.

The incident comes as the Trump administration is hoping for regime change in Cuba (FILE: December 12, 2022)Image: Yamil Lage/AFP

The Cuban coast guard shot dead four people and injured six more in a speedboat registered in the United States, the Cuban Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

What do we know so far?

The speedboat was detected a nautical mile from Cayos Falcones in Villa Clara province off Cuba’s northern coast, the ministry said in a statement.

The Interior Ministry said the boat fired at the coast guard, injuring the commander of the vessel.

“As a result of the clash, at the time of this report, on the foreign side, four aggressors were killed and six others were wounded,” the ministry said, adding that the injured were evacuated and received medical assistance.

The ministry said that it remained committed to “protecting its territorial waters.”

Later, the Cuban government said that the ten individuals aboard the Florida-registered speedboat were armed Cubans living in the US who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism.

What did the US say?

Carlos Gimenez, a Cuban-born Republican member of the US House from Florida, urged “an immediate investigation into this massacre.”

“United States authorities must determine whether any of the victims were US citizens or legal residents and establish exactly what occurred,” Gimenez said in a post on X.

In response to Gimenez’s post, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier ordered the Office of Statewide Prosecution “to work with our federal, state, and law enforcement partners to begin an investigation.”

US Vice President JD Vance said he spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio regarding the shooting.

“Certainly, you know, a situation that we’re monitoring, hopefully it’s not as bad as we fear it could be. But I can’t say more, because I just don’t know more,” Vance said.

Rubio says US is gathering information about incident

Meanwhile, Rubio told reporters that he had been made aware of the incident and that the US was now gathering information to determine whether the victims were American citizens or permanent residents.

“We have various different elements of the US government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now,” Rubio said, while on a trip to the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis.

“We’re not going to base our conclusions on what they’ve (Cuba) told us, and I’m very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here,” Rubio stressed. “As we gather more information, then we’ll be prepared to respond accordingly.”

The US top diplomat also said that the status quo in Cuba was unsustainable and that the island needed to change “dramatically.”

Source : https://www.dw.com/en/cuban-coast-guard-shoots-dead-four-on-us-flagged-speedboat/a-76126495