Nine Cuban migrants adrift in a makeshift boat have been rescued off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, the Mexican navy said in a statement on Thursday.
The seven men and two women were picked up about 30 miles east of the popular tourist island Isla Mujeres, after they were spotted on Tuesday by a Panamanian tanker ship.
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The statement said the migrants had been turned over to the Mexican immigration authorities.
Since the middle of last year the navy has reported picking up dozens of Cuban migrants in similar situations.
These events come as Cubans appear to be increasingly desperate to reach the United States in the wake of thawing bilateral relations that have raised fears that the days are numbered for the special “Wet-Foot, Dry-Foot” immigration policy, though the exodus has not reached the proportions seen in the 1990s when record numbers sought to reach the US by boat. The policy allows Cubans to remain in the US if they reach US soil.
Most of the migrants arriving in Mexico in recent years entered the country by land after flying to Ecuador and then travelling north by bus. This land route, however, was closed on December 1 when Ecuador began requiring visas from Cubans.
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The Ecuadorans slapped on the new requirements in response to the crisis of thousands of Cuban migrants stranded in Costa Rica since mid-November. The Cubans got stuck in diplomatic purgatory when Nicaragua refused to allow them to continue their journey north through Central America.
The first sign that they will be able to leave soon came on December 29 when an agreement was hammered out for a first contingent of Cubans to be flown over Nicaragua to El Salvador. They are then due to be transported by bus through Guatemala to Mexico.
Related: 2,500 Cuban Migrants Are Still Stuck in Costa Rica — And There’s No End In Sight
The first group of 180 Cubans are due to leave Costa Rica for El Salvador on January 12, according to Melissa Durán, assistant to the Costa Rican Foreign Minister Manuel González. She said that a date for the second group will not be determined until after the first has been transported successfully.
“The government of Costa Rica doesn’t have the expertise or knowledge necessary [to deal with the crisis] because we never had a situation with migrants like this in the past,” Roland de Wilde, Costa Rica director for the U.N.’s International Organization for Migration, told a press conference on Wednesday. “The test flight will give us the experience we need to start a stable and permanent plan to allow all these migrants to leave.”
Follow Nathaniel Janowitz on Twitter: @ngjanowitz
