An armed confrontation between a Florida-registered boat and the Cuban coast guard in the island nation’s coastal waters left four dead on the Florida boat and six injured on Wednesday, according to Cuban state news reports.
The communist newspaper Granma said the Florida boat was approached for identification a mile off the coast of the Villa Clara province when the people aboard opened fire, starting a shootout.
One Cuban coast guard officer was reportedly injured.
It was not immediately clear what the boat was doing in Cuban waters.
The Cuban government provided the boat’s registration number, but The Associated Press reported it was unable to readily verify details of the boat because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.
In a statement, the Cuban Ministry of the Interior said: "Cuba has ratified its duty to protect its territorial waters, showing that a fundamental pillar of the Cuban state is national defense, protecting Cuba's sovereignty and stability in the region."
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Miami Congressman Carlos Gimenez, a Republican, rejected any notion of Cuba's stance that it was defensing itself as a sovereign country. He posted on social media that the Cuban government "just attacked a boat from Florida and murdered those on board."
By contrast, Republican Miami Congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar wrote that she is "awaiting further details from U.S. authorities."
Florida Attorney General James Uthmeir announced on Facebook that his office is looking into the incident: "I’ve directed the Office of Statewide Prosecution to work with our federal, state, and law enforcement partners to begin an investigation. The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable."
The incident took place nearly 30 years to the day after the Cuban military shot down two US planes that were searching for Cuban rafters in the Straits of Florida, killing four. That incident marked a low point for US-Cuban relations in recent memory. In response to that incident, Congress passed a law codifying the trade embargo on Cuba into law.
Gimenez, Salazar and Republican Congressman Mario Díaz-Balart this month penned a letter to the Trump administration asking that the U.S. Justice Department reopen its criminal investigation into former Cuba Defense Minister Raúl Castro’s role in the 1996 shootdown.
Cuba is in the midst of an ongoing humanitarian crisis, as the US has effectively blockaded oil from entering the country after the arrest of former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an early January invasion of Venezuela. Before then, Venezuela had been Cuba's main foreign source of oil. The Cuban government has reported that hospitals, schools and centers for the elderly are struggling to keep the lights on.
The humanitarian situation in Cuba was dire before the effective oil embargo, with blackouts affecting everything from food storage to water pumps, as WLRN has reported. A record number of Cubans have fled the island's deteriorating conditions in recent years.
U.S. military ships have intercepted ships suspected of trying to bring oil to the island, The New York Times recently reported.
At the same time, the situation on the island has excited many Cuban exiles in Florida. President Trump has assured that the Cuban communist government will soon collapse.
Cuban media reported the boat's Florida registration number but it is so far unclear who owns the boat.
Requests for comment from the Florida Department of Highways and Motor Vehicles, the US Coast Guard and the US State Department were not immediately returned.
