Cuba reports four dead in firefight with motorboat from Florida

The boat approached within one nautical mile northeast of El Pino Channel, north of Correlio, a town in the province of Villa Clara in central Cuba, according to a statement on the Cuban Interior Ministry’s Facebook page.

Cuban Border Patrol agents on a government boat approached the motorboat seeking identification when the men aboard the boat opened fire on the Cuban crew and wounded the Cuban boat’s commander, the statement said. “As a result of the confrontation, at the time of this report, four foreign attackers were killed and six were wounded,” the government said. The injured were evacuated and received medical treatment, the government said. The government’s statement included what it claimed was the boat’s Florida registration number.

An American official said that the shootout involved an American civilian boat that was part of a flotilla aimed at evacuating relatives from Cuba, adding that the boat was not a US Navy or Coast Guard boat. “In light of the current challenges, Cuba reaffirms its commitment to protect its territorial waters, based on the principle that national defense is a pillar of the Cuban state in order to protect its sovereignty and stability in the region,” the Cuban government said in a statement.