A total of 42 Cuban raftsmen were intercepted at sea and sent to the Bahamas, from where they are to be repatriated to Cuba.
The migrants were in two groups: the first was found last Thursday on Elbow Cay, in the Abaco Islands in the north of the Bahamas, while the others were apprehended on board a boat the same day.
According to the Royal Bahamas Defense Force (RBDF), the 42 rafters were 35 men and seven women, one of whom was pregnant. One of the men was dehydrated.
Operation Bahamas Turks and Caicos (OPBAT) and the United States Coast Guard (USCG) also participated in the operation.
On Thursday morning, the RBDF Operations Command Center received intelligence from the OPBAT air patrol about the presence of suspected migrants in Elbow Cay.
The Bahamas agency received the migrants and took them to the Coral Harbor base, where they received medical attention and were sent to the appropriate law enforcement agencies for further processing.
Last Sunday the The US Coast Guard transferred 25 Cuban raftsmen to the Bahamas authoritiesafter finding them in Cay Sal Bank, which belongs to this archipelago but is much closer to Cuba.
The operation was carried out Saturday by the crew of the Coast Guard cutter Mohawk after rescuing immigrants from four arrivals in areas near the Florida coast and the Bahamas.
In these cases, the Bahamian authorities bring the Cuban raftsmen to an immigration center and inform the Cuban embassy to start repatriation procedures.
At the end of the first half of this fiscal year, which began October 1, Coast Guard crews intercepted more than 1,100 Cubans at sea or while approaching the Florida coast. The number exceeds that of the entire previous period, when 838 immigrants were arrested.
Most of the rescued Cuban raftsmen are being deported or in the process of being repatriated to Cuba.
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