HAVANA, Oct 30, 2022 (AFP) – At least five Cubans, including a young girl, died Saturday when a speedboat taking migrants to Florida collided with a Border Guard vessel and flipped over, the interior ministry said.

Eighteen people were rescued from the waters north of Bahia Honda, in western Cuba, where the collision occurred, the statement said.

The fatalities included a man, three women and a girl, the ministry added, without providing their identities.

The speedboat carrying the migrants had arrived from the United States and “violated Cuban territorial waters in a human trafficking operation,” the statement said.

The collision occurred as the Border Guard vessel sought to question the occupants of the speedboat, according to the statement read on Cuban television.

Cuba blamed the United States for the incident, saying a “hostile and cruel” US policy foments illegal migration by facilitating residency for Cuban migrants who arrive on its shores.

The US Embassy in Havana offered the country’s condolences on Saturday.

“As we strengthen safe and legal pathways for migration, we warn against attempting dangerous and sometimes deadly irregular migration,” it tweeted.

Recent shortages of food, medicine and fuel, combined with frequent power outages, have sent Cuban emigration soaring.

Between October 2021 and August 2022, close to 200,000 Cubans were intercepted by US authorities, either crossing the US-Mexican border by land or crossing to Florida by sea, according to US Customs and Border Protection figures.

In the same period a year earlier, US immigration authorities detained about 30,000 Cubans.

Cuba does not accept deportations of Cuban nationals from the United States, and most Cuban migrants are released after entering the United States illegally to await asylum hearings.