7 Cubans head for US, reach only US mission

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HAVANA – Seven Cubans who set out for the United States in a rickety plastic foam boat wound up instead in front of the U.S. mission to Cuba on Thursday.

The would-be migrants drew gawkers — as well as the attention of Cuba's coast guard — because their journey ended along the rocks lining Havana's heavily traveled Malecon seafront boulevard near the U.S. Interests Section.

Coast guard craft surrounded the disabled little boat around midday, so the seven men jumped in the water and clambered out over the rocks, to be picked up by police.

"Our tiller broke and we had to turn back," Margoi Diaz, 33, told The Associated Press as he sat in a military vehicle on the Malecon.

Plastic foam boats sold in Havana are used primarily for fishing in Havana Bay. They are usually shunned by people trying to reach the U.S. because they are fragile and cannot safely hold more than two or three people.

A police officer at the scene said the men were being taken home, not to jail, because they had not committed any crime.

Cuba has agreed with the U.S. that most would-be migrants stopped at sea by either nation will be returned to Cuba, which promised not to prosecute them.

The seaborne attempt itself was not unusual, even if the landing point was. The Interests Section says that 13,800 Cubans tried to reach the U.S. illegally in 2007 both by sea and by land on the U.S. border with Mexico.
 
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