Cuba says it killed 4 people aboard Florida-registered speedboat that opened fire on soldiers

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HAVANA (AP) — Cuban soldiers killed four people and wounded six others aboard a Florida-registered speed boat that had entered Cuban waters and opened fire first on soldiers, the Cuban government said Wednesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he was made aware of the incident with Cuban soldiers and that the U.S. is now gathering its own information to determine if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents.

“We have various different elements of the U.S. government that are trying to identify elements of the story that may not be provided to us now,” Rubio said while at the airport in Basseterre, St. Kitts.

Trump’s top diplomat refused to speculate on what happened, saying that its could be a “wide range of things,” and that the U.S. will not solely rely on what the Cuban authorities have provided thus far.

“Suffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see shootouts in open sea like that. It’s not something that happens every day,” he said.

Earlier, Cuba’s Interior Ministry issued a statement that provided few details about the shooting, but noted that the boat was roughly 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) northeast of Cayo Falcones, off Cuba’s north coast.

The government provided the boat’s registration number, but The Associated Press was unable to readily verify details of the boat because boat registrations are not public in the state of Florida.

Officials said one Cuban officer was injured, four suspects killed and six others injured.

It wasn’t immediately known what the boat and its occupants were doing in Cuban waters. In the statement, the ministry said Cuba’s government was “safeguarding its sovereignty and ensuring stability in the region.”

U.S. Vice President JD Vance said late Wednesday afternoon that he had been briefed on the incident by Rubio. He added that the White House was monitoring the situation, but declined to provide further details.

“Hopefully it’s not as bad as we fear it could be,” Vance said.

The shooting threatens to increase tensions between the U.S. and Cuba. Following the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Donald Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive stance toward Cuba, which had been largely kept economically afloat by Venezuela’s oil.

The energy crisis Cuba has been grappling with for years entered new extremes last month when Trump signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any country that sells or provides oil to Cuba. The move put pressure on Mexico, which Cuba became largely dependent on for petroleum after Trump halted oil shipments from Venezuela.

America’s top diplomat says a dramatic shift must be made by Cuba’s government because that’s the only way to improve the quality of life of its citizens.

Rubio says the government needs to make “dramatic reforms that open the space for both economic and eventually political freedom for the people of Cuba.”

James Uthmeier, Florida’s attorney general, said he has ordered prosecutors to work with federal, state and law enforcement partners to start an investigation.

“The Cuban government cannot be trusted, and we will do everything in our power to hold these communists accountable,” he wrote on X.

Meanwhile, Florida Rep. Carlos A. Gimenez decried the four killings and accused the Cuban government of murder.

“This regime must be relegated to the dust bin of history!” he wrote on X.

It’s not unusual for skirmishes to erupt between Cuba’s Coast Guard and U.S.-flagged speedboats in Cuban waters, but there have been no recent reports of passengers opening fire or being killed.

In past years, some of those U.S.-flagged boats were laden with unidentified items headed toward the island or they were going to pick up Cubans and smuggle them into the U.S.

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Associated Press reporters Josh Funk in Omaha, Nebraska; Aamer Madhani and Konstantin Toropin in Washington, D.C.; and Matthew Lee in Basseterre, St. Kitts contributed to this report.