U.S.-bound Haitian migrants wind up in Cuba

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Loverie Horat (left) sits by her mother, holding her 24-day-old daughter, and her husband at the campground in Cuba’s Villa Clara province on Thursday. Associated Press/Photo by Ramon Espinosa

U.S.-bound Haitian migrants wind up in Cuba

Some of the 842 Haitian migrants said they each paid smugglers up to $4,000, believing they would take a cruise line to Florida. Instead, they crammed into a single gray ship, with some sitting on the roof. The migrants were rescued Tuesday by the Cuban coast guard about 185 miles east of Havana after their captain abandoned ship. The group, believed to be the largest to flee Haiti in recent years, included 70 children and 97 women — two of them pregnant.

Why the exodus from Haiti? The migrants said they fled poverty and insecurity in their home country. One 19-year-old man said gang members killed his two sisters. Haiti has witnessed a surge in gang-related violence and kidnappings over the past year. The U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted about 4,500 Haitian migrants in the past seven months, with more than 3,000 migrants arriving since mid-March. Cuba, which is battling its own economic crisis, hosted the latest arrivals at a temporary center in a former summer camp in Villa Clara province.

Dig deeper: Read Jamie Dean’s WORLD Magazine report on how Haitian churches have responded to the violence.

Onize Ohikere

Onize is WORLD’s Africa reporter and deputy global desk chief. She is a World Journalism Institute graduate and earned a journalism degree from Minnesota State University–Moorhead. Onize resides in Abuja, Nigeria.

@onize_ohiks