Search continues for Cuban migrants. Two Key West boaters also missing after Ian

David Goodhue

Sixteen of the 23 Cuban migrants who went missing after their vessel capsized off the coast of Key West early Wednesday morning, as Hurricane Ian approached Florida, remain officially unaccounted for, according to the U.S. Coast Guard.

Four people swam to shore at Stock Island, just east of Key West, and they reported 23 people in their party were missing. Coast Guard crews rescued three more people Wednesday night, and the Border Patrol located another person from the group alive on Stock Island Thursday.

Since then, two bodies have been found floating in the waters of the Upper Keys, Coast Guard spokeswoman Petty Officer Nicole Groll said.

The Monroe County Sheriff’s Office has reported several more bodies found, also floating in that area, but officials said they are unable to immediately confirm if those people were part of the migrant group.

Survivors told Coast Guard and Border Patrol officials they left Matanzas, Cuba, on Friday, Sept. 24, so they were at sea when Ian’s tropical storm wind gusts and strong waves were battering the Lower Florida Keys and producing dangerously high seas surrounding the island chain.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard said it returned 120 people from Cuba who were stopped at sea trying to migrate to South Florida in the days leading up to Hurricane Ian passing the Keys as a powerful Category 4 storm.

The agency has also been busy making rescues on the west coast of Florida, where Ian wrought most of its devastation and claimed dozens of lives.

Missing boaters

The Coast Guard is also reporting two people and a dog are missing from Key West.

The U.S. Coast Guard released a photograph of a 32-foot Carver cabin cruiser on which two people were last seen near Key West Harbor Tuesday, Sept. 27. 2022.
The U.S. Coast Guard released a photograph of a 32-foot Carver cabin cruiser on which two people were last seen near Key West Harbor Tuesday, Sept. 27. 2022.

Omar Millet Torres and Betsy Morales were last seen Tuesday evening — with their dog — on a 32-foot Carver cabin cruiser in the area of the Fury Playground near Key West Harbor.

“The Coast Guard requests any assistance in locating the vessel,” U.S. Coast Guard Sector Key West said in a statement on Facebook Saturday.

Anyone with information on the missing vessel is asked to call Sector Key West at (305) 292-8727

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