MIAMI – Six Cuban migrants who were found by the U.S. Coast Guard with gunshot wounds on a makeshift raft south of Key West are denying that they injured themselves in order to receive medical treatment in the U.S.
Yarelys Aguilera, who is four months pregnant, and Denny Rumbaut Varona were among the Cuban migrants taken to U.S. hospitals after the Coast Guard intercepted them early Saturday morning. They were recovering Monday at Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami.
Four others received medical treatment in the U.S. and were allowed to stay. The remaining 20 on the raft were repatriated to Cuba.
Under the U.S. "wet foot, dry foot" policy, Cubans who've reached U.S. soil are allowed to stay, while those who are intercepted before reaching land are sent back.
The migrants claim that they were preparing to make the trek across the Florida Straits when they were approached by several others who tried to steal their raft. They said their attackers opened fire at them, but they continued their journey despite not knowing when help would come.
"They don't know who shot them because it was in the dark," Oscar Rivera, director of Church World Service in Doral, told Local 10 News.
Rivera said the migrants hadn't been treated when the Coast Guard found them.
The migrants said they came to the U.S. to better themselves and their families. They denied that they were smuggled or orchestrated their own survivable wounds so as to ensure that they would be treated in the U.S. and allowed to stay.