The migrants left Pinar del Río and are originally from Havana, Matanzas and Sancti Spíritus
14ymedio, Angel Salinas, Mexico City, February 15, 2026 — The National Migration Institute (INM) is taking into custody seven Cuban migrants who were rescued last Friday by fishermen in Mahahual, off the coast of Banco Chinchorro, a reef reserve in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo. The migrants requested asylum and told authorities they were fleeing “hunger and a lack of medicine,” an official who asked to remain anonymous told 14ymedio.
The rafters from Havana, Matanzas, and Sancti Spíritus said they left the island on a raft on the Pinar del Río side. They recounted that the fuel shortages and constant power outages are the beginning of a country that is “falling apart.”
One of the Cubans said that “the situation is unsustainable” and that he would rather “die at sea” than stay in Cuba. The migrants are in good health and are waiting to submit their asylum application to the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (Comar).
Jany Tun, a fisherman from Mahahual, says that sightings of Cubans are normal. “Some are carried by the current, others, like what happened now, are brought to the shore by the wind,” but “nobody says anything because we are peaceful people.”
A call alerted the authorities last Friday about the arrival of Cubans. “Los muchachos hadn’t even arrived yet and agents from the National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP) were already waiting for them at Banco Chinchorro. Someone must have reported them,” Tun told this newspaper.
The migrants were handed over to the Navy and, after a medical evaluation, were placed in the custody of the National Migration Institute (INM). Last October, Dagoberto Canul, a municipal police officer from Yucatán, told 14ymedio that “Mexico is no longer just a transit country due to U.S. restrictions and is becoming a destination country.” Unfortunately, he says, “the country is not prepared.”
This news desk of this paper has also received information about the routes used by the coyotes. The main arrival points are the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, due to its “lack of surveillance,” Isla Mujeres, and Cancún. “Dozens of rafters have come from Isla de la Juventud and landed in Cancún,” the official stated.
Javier Robles, a fisherman who owns a catamaran that he rents to tourists in Cancun (Quintana Roo), told this media that the clandestine arrivals have left several boats stranded on the coast, to the point that “Isla Mujeres is becoming a graveyard of abandoned rafts used by Cubans to reach Mexico.”
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