MIAMI, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Eight Cuban migrants rescued from a raft last weekend by a cruise liner were returned to Cuba Wednesday in the first such repatriation of the new year.
The group, all men, disembarked a Coast Guard cutter at Bahia de Cabanas on Cuba's northern coast about 11 a.m., according to a statement from the U.S. Coast Guard reported by the Miami Herald.
Passengers on Royal Caribbean's Brilliance of the Seas spotted a raft Sunday as the ship returned to the Port of Miami after a 10-day cruise, a company spokesman said.
The ship turned around after the passengers convinced the crew of what they had seen.
The men on the small homemade raft told their rescuers they had been at sea seven days and had encountered trouble with their vessel, losing a sail. They said they had been drifting for three days with no food or water.
