Boat people lived by forage

Posted on Sat, Feb. 04, 2006
CUBAN MIGRATION
Boat people lived by forage

Cuban migrants found on a Bahamian key had to swim through a jagged reef
and eat mollusks to survive on land for 13 days.
BY OSCAR CORRAL
ocorral@MiamiHerald.com

The eight Cuban migrants found alive on Elbow Key Thursday had been
afloat for seven days in the Florida Straits, their food and water
supply gone.

Then the sea turned on them, slamming their makeshift vessel against a
jagged reef, and sending them all tumbling into the water, said Manuel
Felipe Prieto, who lives in Miami and is the uncle of one of the
victims, Yuley Parra, 22.

That's when six of the Cubans may have died, Prieto said.

''Everyone jumped into the sea,'' Prieto said. ``They started swimming,
but the sea was choppy. Yuley, the girl, was very skinny, and that's
when she disappeared.''

Prieto's account comes from his conversation Thursday night with Raidel
Martinez Chavez, the migrant taken to a hospital in Marathon to treat an
infected thumb and lacerated arm. Prieto said Martinez lost part of his
finger as he swam toward land through the razor-sharp reef, and that
many of the other migrants were injured.

Mariners Hospital said Martinez was not taking phone calls.

The survivors told Coast Guard officials that six others had died while
attempting to reach shore after their homemade vessel broke apart.

This group of Cubans was not the group of 15 that the Coast Guard had
searched for last week. ''The two had no correlation,'' said Coast Guard
spokeswoman Gretchen Eddy. ``That other group is still missing.''

LIVED BY FORAGE

For 13 days, the survivors ate snails and other mollusks, seaweed and
other edible things that washed up on shore, Prieto said.

The Coast Guard said the survivors claimed they had left Cuba Jan. 13,
and desperately swam to the island after the shipwreck Jan. 20.

Seven of the survivors were awaiting their fate Friday afternoon aboard
a Coast Guard vessel, said Petty Officer James Judge. Judge said no
bodies had been recovered, and that the Coast Guard planned to turn the
migrants over to Bahamian authorities because they had been found on
Bahamian territory.

The Coast Guard rescued the survivors after receiving a report from the
Bahamian fishing vessel Sea Explorer, the Coast Guard said. Judge said
no bodies had been recovered.

William MacDonald, assistant director for the Bahamas immigration
agency, told the Associated Press the migrants would have to prove they
faced persecution in communist Cuba to be granted political refugee
status in his country. Otherwise, they will be deported.

Martinez will likely be allowed to stay in the United States because he
was taken for medical care to the Florida Keys.

CALL FOR REVIEW

Meanwhile, the Cuban American National Foundation sent a letter to U.S.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales asking him to conduct an immediate
review of the controversial wet-foot, dry-foot policy, which mostly
allows Cubans who reach U.S. shores to stay, but demands the
repatriation of those picked up at sea unless they can show they qualify
for asylum.

It has been two weeks since the White House promised Cuban exile leaders
that federal officials will meet with them to discuss concerns they have
with the policy.

So far, no date has been set for a meeting.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/world/cuba/13788980.htm