Cuba says two die in latest smuggler boat incident

By Patrick Markey

HAVANA (Reuters) - Two Cuban migrants died after their vessel capsized trying to race to Florida in the latest incident in the past month involving a suspected smuggling vessel, Cuban authorities said on Thursday.

The U.S. Coast Guard on Thursday also repatriated 28 Cubans in an incident that follows reports by families that as many as 40 Cubans went missing after leaving the island in a "go fast" smuggling boat at the end of last month.

The number of Cubans who U.S. authorities say they have intercepted trying to reach U.S. territory has crept up to its highest level since a 1994 exodus when tens of thousands fled on boats, rafts and inner tubes.

U.S. immigration policy toward its Communist-run neighbor sends Cubans intercepted at sea back to Cuba but those who reach U.S. soil are almost always allowed to remain.

Cuba blames that "dry foot" policy for encouraging Cubans to risk their lives on vessels or smuggler boats racing across the 90-mile gap with Florida. Critics say emigration shows simmering discontent over economic hardships on the island.

The Interior Ministry confirmed earlier U.S. reports that two people died last week when a boat carrying 15 to 20 people capsized trying to avoid a reef.

"Investigations continue into this unfortunate accident, which has its origins in the murderous Cuban adjustment law (the U.S. "dry foot" policy), which stimulates illegal emigration ...," the statement said.

The ministry also blamed Cuban residents in Florida.

Smugglers on so-called "cigarette" boats speed into Cuban waters to pick up passengers whose relatives in the United States pay $8,000 to $12,000 to get them to the U.S. coast.

A U.S. Hercules patrol aircraft spotted another overloaded speedboat on Friday carrying 28 migrants off Mariel in Cuba, the Coast Guard said. The Cubans were returned on Thursday to Bahia de Cubanas.

"During the past week Coast Guard crews also successfully disrupted seven suspected migrant-smuggling operations, nabbing 11 suspected smugglers," the statement said.

According to U.S. figures, so far this year the coast guard has intercepted 3,197 Cuban migrants, up from 2,293 stopped a year earlier.

Families in the towns of Perico and Marti in Cuba's Matanzas provinces said last week as many as 40 people, including a group of children, went missing after leaving on November 24. The U.S. coast guard said a search yielded no signs of the craft.

(Reporting by Patrick Markey in Havana)