Survivors of collision at sea say their boat was rammed by Cuban coast guard vessel

Elizabeth Meizoso was a happy toddler who liked to pose with her mom’s sunglasses. She is seen dressed all in white with a bow headband in one picture. In another, she is driving a toy red car. Smiling relatives hold her while taking selfies posted on Facebook. She had just turned two in August.

Since Saturday, those pictures embodied the tragedy lived by one Cuban family who lost Elizabeth and two other members when they all drowned after the boat in which they were trying to flee the island for the United States collided with a Cuban coast guard vessel and capsized, according to the official government version.

The incident occurred near Bahía Honda, a coastal town west of Havana where the Meizoso family is from. According to Cuba’s Interior Ministry, the government vessel was trying to “identify” the speedboat that came from the U.S. in an alleged human trafficking operation when the collision happened. As a result, five people died and 18 were rescued, said the ministry statement, which did not identify the victims.

But survivors and their relatives have provided a different account, saying the Cuban coast guard crew intentionally rammed the speedboat. After initially labeling the incident as an “accident,” the Biden administration told the Miami Herald it is now “gathering information and will continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding this tragic incident.”

A close family member of the deceased girl said the child’s mother, 22-year-old Diana Rosa Meizoso González, who was on the speedboat and survived, questioned the official version.

“I was able to talk to her, and she told me that the Coast Guard boat hit them,” said the close relative whom the Herald agreed not to identify for fear of government retaliation. “She had the girl in her arms, and a piece of the boat hit her head. That left her unconscious, and the girl slipped out of her hands.”

Afterwards, the relative said, Meizoso González “was able to grab onto something and saw someone carrying the girl” in the water. At that point, the mother was unsure if the girl was still alive.

“That baby was my world,” the relative told the Herald.

Meizoso González is not receiving medical or professional psychological support and is staying with her mother, the relative said. She was not available to speak when the Herald inquired. But on Monday, Meizoso González told the U.S.-based Radio Marti that the Cuban coast guard officers intentionally hit their boat.

The man at the helm of the speedboat “slowed down because he saw himself surrounded because another boat was coming,” Meizoso González said in an audio interview.

“When we passed them by, [a Cuban coast guard officer] said: ‘Now I’m going to split them in half,’ and then he rammed us.”

At that point, she said, she hit her head and lost consciousness, and her daughter slipped away.

Other survivors interviewed by Miami station America TV provided a similar account.

“As we boarded the boat, the Cuban border guards attacked us from behind and neutralized the engines and immediately attacked us from the side,” said Edileydis Lemus Crespo, a young pregnant woman who was on the boat. “They said they were going to split us in the middle, and that’s how it was.”

“They went all-in to kill us,” she said. “They had no compassion for us.”

The survivors said the coast guard officers did not immediately help rescue those in the water.

“We, the relatives, were rescuing people ourselves, and we began to get on [the boat] little by little because they didn’t even help us,” Héctor Eduardo Meizoso told América TV.

Meizoso González also said the survivors were detained and interrogated before being released.

Her daughter was not the only family member the Meizosos lost that day.

The family source said that Aimara Meizoso and Yerandy García Meizoso are among those who lost their lives. García Meizoso’s body was found by fishermen on Sunday. The body of another passenger, Israel Gómez, was found on Monday.

While the Interior Ministry’s statement only mentions five victims, so far, family members and Cuban independent media have identified seven people as having died in the incident. They are Elizabeth Meizoso, Aimara Meizoso, Yerandy García Meizoso, Israel Gómez, Indira Serrano Cala, Nathali Acosta Lemus and the boat pilot, Omar Reyes Valdés.

The incident happened amid the largest exodus of Cubans to the United States since the 1960s. Almost 225,000 Cubans came to the United States in the fiscal year 2022 that ended in October, seeking economic survival and political freedoms.

Meizoso González, the child’s mother, “decided to leave because of the situation in the country, looking for a better life and a better future for the girl,” her relative said.

The Cuban government so far has blamed the United States for the accident, arguing that U.S. policies encourage illegal migration.

A U.S. State Department spokesperson lamented the politicization of the lives lost in Bahía Honda.

“It is unfortunate that Cuban officials politicized this tragic incident to criticize U.S. policy,” the spokesperson told the Herald.

The State Department official said the administration is working on expanding legal migration from the island and warned against attempting “dangerous and sometimes fatal irregular migration.”

“As we have articulated numerous times, the United States will continue to prioritize our support for the human rights and the political and economic well-being of the Cuban people,” the spokesperson added. “If it wishes to curtail irregular migration, the Cuban government must address its failed economic policies and end its repression of its citizens at home.”