{"id":491923,"date":"2026-02-26T16:22:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/491923\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T16:22:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T16:22:09","slug":"what-we-know-so-far-about-the-deadly-boat-shooting-off-cubas-coast-cuba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/491923\/","title":{"rendered":"What we know so far about the deadly boat shooting off Cuba\u2019s coast | Cuba"},"content":{"rendered":"

Cuba\u2019s government said a US-registered boat was carrying 10 people, most of whom it claimed \u201chave a known history of criminal and violent activity\u201d. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio<\/a>, said the US was gathering its own information but called the open sea shootout \u201chighly unusual\u201d.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s what we know so far.<\/p>\n

What happened in the Cuba speedboat shootings?<\/p>\n

Cuba said its coastguard shot dead four people and injured six others travelling in a US-registered speedboat just after 2pm ET on Wednesday, in an exchange of fire one nautical mile from Cayo Falcones island, off Cuba\u2019s northern coast.<\/p>\n

Havana\u2019s interior ministry said the coastguard approached the boat to identify the passengers. Then \u201cshots were fired from the boat\u201d, injuring the captain of the Cuban vessel. The injured were evacuated and received medical assistance, Cuba said.<\/p>\n

The US said it was conducting its own investigations to try to establish what happened.<\/p>\n

Who was killed, wounded or detained?<\/p>\n

The interior ministry claimed the 10 boat passengers were armed Cubans living in the US who were trying to infiltrate the island and unleash terrorism.<\/p>\n

Amijail S\u00e1nchez Gonz\u00e1lez, Leordan Enrique Cruz G\u00f3mez, Conrado Galindo Sariol, Jos\u00e9 Manuel Rodr\u00edguez Castello, Cristian Ernesto Acosta Guevara and Roberto Azcorra Consuegra were detained. In addition, Cuba said Gonz\u00e1lez and G\u00f3mez were previously wanted in Cuba on suspicion of planning terrorist acts.<\/p>\n

Cuba said it also detained another Cuban man in Cuban territory, Duniel Hern\u00e1ndez Santos, who it claimed had come from the US to the island in order to receive the infiltrators.<\/p>\n

Michel Ortega Casanova was killed in the firefight, Cuba said. The other three dead are yet to be identified.<\/p>\n

What does the Cuban government say about the incident?<\/p>\n

The initial statement from Cuba\u2019s interior ministry provided few details. But it did claim the boat had the Florida registration number FL7726SH. The ministry said Cuba\u2019s government was \u201csafeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a second statement on Wednesday, Cuba said it had obtained more details about the passengers from the detained suspects. It claimed the group came from the US armed with assault rifles, handguns, homemade explosives, ballistic vests and telescopic sights. \u201cAccording to preliminary statements from the detainees, they intended to carry out an infiltration for terrorist purposes,\u201d the statement said.<\/p>\n

What does the US say about the incident?<\/p>\n

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Washington was seeking its own facts about the shooting but that it was not a US government operation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not going to base our conclusions on what they\u2019ve [Cuba] told us, and I\u2019m very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here,\u201d Rubio told reporters while on a trip to the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we gather more information, then we\u2019ll be prepared to respond accordingly,\u201d he said. \u201cSuffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that.\u201d Rubio said homeland security and the US Coast Guard were investigating.<\/p>\n

James Uthmeier, Florida\u2019s attorney general, said local authorities would investigate and assist federal agencies. \u201cThe Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,\u201d he posted on X.<\/p>\n

Why are US-Cuba tensions especially high right now?<\/p>\n

The Cuban economy has been pushed to brink by a US oil blockade that has been in place for more than a month. Before US forces seized Nicol\u00e1s Maduro<\/a> on 3 January, Cuba had relied on Venezuela for about half its fuel needs. Caribbean leaders have worried<\/a> that starving 9.6 million Cubans of oil<\/a> could cause the economy to collapse.<\/p>\n

In the hours before Wednesday\u2019s boat shooting, Washington had agreed to ease oil restrictions on Cuba and allow shipments of Venezuelan oil for \u201ccommercial and humanitarian use\u201d. The US treasury department said exports would need to go through private businesses and not the government or military apparatus in the communist state.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cuba\u2019s government said a US-registered boat was carrying 10 people, most of whom it claimed \u201chave a known…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":{"0":"post-491923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-united-states-of-america","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-usa"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=491923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/491923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=491923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=491923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=491923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}