Migrants on makeshift raft rescued in Florida Straits

Migrants floating on a makeshift raft — crafted with plastic inner tubes and tree branches — have been rescued in the Florida Straits, according to the US Coast Guard.

The Cutter Charles Sexton rescued the four men from the jury-rigged vessel Sunday afternoon some 60 miles off the coast of Marathon, officials said.

“Unpredictable weather could have cost these people their lives. Thankfully, our crews are patrolling to ensure these voyages don’t end in loss of life,” the Coast Guard said.

The agency posted two photos of the raft, which was propelled by an improvised sail mounted on a branch, with the migrants sitting on crisscrossed pieces of wood along with plastic containers.

The whole contraption appeared to be floating on inner tubes covered in a blue tarp.

The Coast Guard did not provide information about the migrants and where they came from.

Last month, the agency posted a photograph of a wooden boat featuring a prayer painted on its side and carrying more than 20 migrants off the Alligator Reef, near Florida’s Matecumbe Keys, WPLG reported.

“God will guard your exit and entrance now and forever,” the sign said in Spanish.

Members of the agency’s Islamorada station intercepted the boat on Feb. 28.

“Illegally migrating on unsafe vessels w/o safety equipment is dangerous. Small craft advisories are being instituted for incoming weather. #DontTaketotheSea,” the Coast Guard said in a tweet.

During the fiscal year 2022, the agency blocked more than 12,000 Haitian and Cuban migrants in the Caribbean, WPLG reported, citing federal data. 

The Coast Guard reported 65 deaths related to illegal immigration last fiscal year, up from just five in 2021, WPTV reported.

According to the International Organization for Migration, 256 people, more than half from Cuba, died or disappeared trying to reach the mainland US from the Caribbean in 2022.

That’s a nearly 300% spike from the year before.  

“It’s really those missing, missing numbers that are the hardest part of this work,” Julia Black, who works on the Missing Migrants Project, told the outlet.

“There’s no search and rescue. There’s no boat ever recovered. There’s no remains ever recovered. The family simply never hears from them again. These are absolutely the cases (that) break your heart every single time,” she added.