Cuban coast guard kills 4 in US-flagged speedboat

DW News · Feb 25, 2026 · Collected from RSS

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The Cuban coast guard shot dead four people and injured six more in a speedboat registered in the United States, the Cuban Interior Ministry said on Wednesday. What do we know so far? The speedboat was detected a nautical mile from Cayos Falcones in Villa Clara province off Cuba's northern coast, the ministry said in a statement. The Interior Ministry said the boat fired at the coast guard, injuring the commander of the vessel. "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 ministry said that it remained committed to "protecting its territorial waters." Carlos Gimenez, a Cuban-born Republican member of the US House from Florida, urged "an immediate investigation into this massacre." "United States authorities must determine whether any of the victims were US citizens or legal residents and establish exactly what occurred," Gimenez said in a post on X. In response to Gimenez's post, Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier ordered the Office of Statewide Prosecution "to work with our federal, state, and law enforcement partners to begin an investigation." US Vice President JD Vance said he spoke with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio regarding the shooting. "Certainly, you know, a situation that we're monitoring, hopefully it's not as bad as we fear it could be. But I can't say more, because I just don't know more," Vance said.Rubio says US is gathering information about incident Meanwhile, Rubio told reporters that he had been made aware of the incident and that the US was now gathering information to determine whether the victims were American citizens or permanent residents. "We have various different elements of the US government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now," Rubio said, while on a trip to the Caribbean nation of St Kitts and Nevis. "We're not going to base our conclusions on what they've (Cuba) told us, and I'm very, very confident that we will know the full story of what happened here," Rubio stressed. "As we gather more information, then we'll be prepared to respond accordingly." The US top diplomat also said that the status quo in Cuba was unsustainable and that the island needed to change "dramatically." Shooting comes as US cuts off Venezuelan oil to Cuba The shooting comes as the US blocks Venezuelan oil to Cuba, strangling its economy and daily life. Venezuela is Cuba's top supporter of oil, along with Mexico and Russia. Cuba crisis deepens as US blockade starves island of oilTo view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video The US on Wednesday greenlit the resale of Venezuelan oil to Cuba, if it helps the Cuban private sector rather than the communist-run government. It comes as US Secretary of State Marco Rubio meets with Caribbean leaders who are concerned that the situation in Cuba could destabilize the region. Edited by: Sean Sinico, Dmytro Hubenko