HAVANA (AP) — Cuba’s government said Wednesday that its soldiers killed four people aboard a speed boat registered in Florida that opened fire on officers in Cuban waters.
Cuba’s Interior Ministry issued a statement that provided few details about the shooting, but noted that the boat was roughly 1 mile northeast of Cayo Falcones, off Cuba’s north coast.
It was unclear if any U.S. citizens were aboard.
The government provided the boat’s registration number, but The Associated Press was unable to readily verify details of the boat because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.
Officials said one Cuban officer was injured, four suspects killed and six others injured.
It wasn’t immediately known what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters.
In the statement, the ministry said Cuba’s government was “safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.”
It’s not unusual for skirmishes to erupt between Cuba’s Coast Guard and U.S.-flagged speedboats in Cuban waters, but there have been no recent reports of passengers opening fire or being killed.
In past years, some of those U.S.-flagged boats were laden with unidentified items headed toward the island or they were going to pick up Cubans and smuggle them into the U.S.
Officials with the U.S. Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of State and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The incident comes as tensions simmer between the U.S. and Cuba in the wake of mounting pressure by the Trump administration. The two countries used to collaborate on drug smuggling and other crimes but have since stopped doing so.
Associated Press reporters Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska and Matthew Lee in Basseterre, St. Kitts contributed to this report.
