Havana, Feb 26 (.) The Cuban government stated that four people shot dead by Cuban border guards in a US-registered speedboat were Cuban nationals living in the United States, the media reports said on Thursday.
In a statement posted online, Cuba’s interior ministry said that the speedboat’s passengers — the four who were killed and six others who were wounded, also Cuban citizens — opened fire on a coast guard vessel that approached them near an island off the country’s northern coast on Wednesday, the BBC reported.
According to BBC reports, 10 individuals, some with previous criminal records, were armed and intended to “carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes”.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the US was also investigating the “highly unusual” incident.
Cuba’s interior ministry identified the six surviving passengers, who have since been detained, and one passenger who was killed.
According to officials, most of them “have prior records involving criminal and violent activity”.
Authorities recovered handguns, assault rifles, improvised explosive devices, and other tactical equipment from the speedboat, the statement said.
The interior ministry also identified an eleventh person they said had been arrested and had confessed to being part of the alleged plot, it said.
In an earlier statement posted on X, the ministry said the Florida-registered vessel – with the registration number FL7726SH was detected near Cayo Falcones, in the country’s central Villa Clara province on Wednesday morning.
When a Cuban boat carrying five members of the ministry’s border guard approached the vessel for identification, “the crew of the violating speedboat opened fire” and wounded the Cuban commander, the statement said.
“As a consequence of the confrontation, as of the time of this report, four aggressors on the foreign vessel were killed and six injured.” Those injured were evacuated and given medical assistance, the statement added.
Before the Cuban government released the identities of some of the passengers, Marco Rubio confirmed that the boat was not carrying US government personnel.
He added that an investigation was underway to “clarify” the incident and determine what the passengers were doing in the area.
Rubio, spoke from Saint Kitts and Nevis, where he had travelled to meet Caribbean leaders amid the Trump administration’s push to ramp up pressure on Cuba’s government, as well as other regional issues, the report said.
“We’re going to find out exactly what happened, who was involved, and we’ll make a determination on the basis of what we find out,” he told reporters.
He vowed that US investigators would move “quickly” to gather the key facts, and that the US Coast Guard has travelled to the “vicinity” of the attack.
But he added that the US would not rely on information provided by the Cuban government, and that Washington would independently verify the facts of the case.
“It is highly unusual to see shootouts on the open sea like that. It’s not something that happens everyday,” Rubio said.
The incident comes amid increased tensions between the US and Cuba, which is facing a deepening fuel crisis that has been worsened by the US blocking oil shipments from Venezuela, a long-standing ally in the region, to the island, the BBC reports said.
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