HAVANA: Cuba’s coast guard shot dead four people and injured six others traveling in a US-registered speedboat in an exchange of fire off the Cuban shore on Wednesday, the interior ministry in Havana said.
The confrontation comes amid heightened tensions between the United States and communist Cuba, which lies just 100 miles (160 kilometers) across the Florida Straits.
Cuba did not reveal the nationalities of the passengers aboard the US boat, and US officials made no immediate comment on the incident.
The interior ministry said the coast guard encountered the “illegal” Florida-registered vessel one nautical mile from Falcones Cay in Villa Clara province.
As the coast guard vessel approached, shots were fired from the US boat, injuring the commander of the Cuban vessel, the ministry said.
“As a result of the clash, at the time of this report, on the foreign side, four aggressors were killed and six others were wounded,” the ministry said, adding that the injured were evacuated and received medical assistance.
The Cuban government frequently reports incursions by speedboats from the United States into its territorial waters.
The incidents are often related to human or drug trafficking and have included chases, shootouts and armed attacks on border guards.

- Human trafficking -

Between January and June 2022, the year of the largest wave of Cuban emigration in six decades, the coast guard intercepted 13 speedboats coming from the United States, in what authorities described as “human trafficking operations from Cuba to that country.”
Wednesday’s shootings came as Washington softened a virtual oil siege of the island imposed by President Donald Trump in January after the US ouster of top Cuba ally, Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.
Before Maduro’s capture by US forces on January 3, Cuba had relied on Venezuela for about half its fuel needs.
Faced with an outcry from Caribbean leaders, worried that starving Cuba of oil would cause the economy to quickly collapse, Washington said it would allow shipments of Venezuelan oil for “commercial and humanitarian use.”
The Treasury Department said the exports would need to go through private businesses and not the Cuban government or the military apparatus which controls much of the island’s economy.
The announcement during a summit of Caribbean nations attended by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a Cuban-American who has spent his career hoping to topple Havana’s government.
Since becoming the top US diplomat, Rubio has toned down his calls for regime change in Havana.
The US oil blockade in place for over a month has brought an already crumbling Cuban economy to the brink.
Mexico on Tuesday dispatched two military vessels carrying nearly 2,200 tons of aid to the island — its second aid shipment in under a month.
Canada, for its part announced CAN$8 million ($5.8 million) in aid.