7 Cuban boat people will be sent home

Tonight, a group of Cuban men are being detained at the San Pedro police station…stranded sailors apparently in search of a more prosperous life. News 5 understands that on Wednesday, Belizean law enforcement officials, acting on a tip, visited an area near Bacalar Chico near the Mexican border and found seven men, between the ages of twenty and forty, camping out in several huts. In Spanish, the group told authorities they had left Cuba in a twenty foot sailboat on the twenty-seventh of October but were blown off course by bad weather, landing on Ambergris Caye on November seventh. It is speculated that course was north, to the Florida coast. A watchman living nearby had initially provided the men with some food, while they recovered from their arduous voyage, but the presence of the illegal immigrants was eventually noticed by locals using the area and word trickled down to the authorities. Our sources say the men carry no form of identification but have already expressed their desire to stay in Belize to work; they are quoted as saying that life in Cuba is too rough. According to Director of Immigration, Colonel Peter Parchue, the Cubans will be treated like any other immigrants who enter the country illegally. That is they will be detained until a suitable mode of transport can be found, at which time they will be returned to their country of origin. That process should be completed within a week.