Cuban refugees hail ride to Florida in converted cab

A GROUP of Cubans making the third bid in two years to reach the United States in a vintage American car converted into a boat were intercepted by the US Coast Guard, relatives said on Wednesday.

In their impoverished Havana neighbourhood, tearful mothers implored US authorities to allow the emigres to stay in the United States, saying they would be jailed if returned to Communist-run Cuba.

Thirteen Cubans, including six children, sailed across the Florida Straits in a 1949 Mercury with an built-on prow and a taxi sign on the roof. They were intercepted about 32 km off Key West on the southern tip of Florida on Tuesday morning, Miami television station NBC 6 reported.

The group set off on Monday night from a beach east of Havana in the converted car owned by Rafael Diaz, who was making his third attempt to leave Cuba in a makeshift amphibious craft.

Miami television images showed them aboard a US Coast Guard cutter. A Coast Guard spokesperson said he could not provide details on the incident until the fate of the migrants was resolved.

"He's my only son. He is all I have got," said Diaz's mother Josefina Rey, 79. "But at least in the United States he can remake his life. Here they will not leave him in peace. I implore the US government that they be allowed to stay. If they are returned they will be refugees forever, there will be reprisals," said Efigenia Bello, whose daughter, son-in-law and two grandchildren, aged 3 and 4, were on the vessel.

She said her daughter Yerani was a doctor and Cuba would not allow her to emigrate legally to the United States.

Generally, Cubans intercepted on the 140-km crossing to Florida are sent back to the island, while those who make it to US soil are allowed to stay. Others are taken to the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay and later allowed to go to a third country from where they can make it to the United States.

In Diezmero, one neighbourhood over from where writer Ernest Hemingway lived for 20 years, residents have no doubt the risks are worth taking. Their cinder-block and wooden houses are on streets that smell of sewers and uncollected garbage, and frequent power outages make the tropical heat hard to bear.

"They do well to leave. Everyone wants to go," said neighbour Jersi Antonio. "When there is running water, there is no electricity, and when there is electricity, there is no water."

Diezmero residents caught the public eye two years ago when they sought to motor over to Florida in a 1951 flatbed Chevy truck kept afloat with oil drums and fitted with a propeller. They were intercepted and returned to Cuba. Some 1,406 Cubans have been intercepted crossing the Florida Straits since October.