Elian López: US Coast Guard rescues Cuban migrant who windsurfed to Florida for cancer treatment

The windsurfer was equipped with a life jacket, GPS system, and multiple cell phones

The US Coast Guard rescues Elian López, a Cuban migrant who sailed to Florida on a windsurfing board on 22 March, 2022, to seek cancer treatment. (US Coast Guard)

The US Coast Guard intercepted a Cuban migrant on a windsurfing board, who braved the dangerous waters between the island and Florida in order to reach the US and get treatment for colon cancer.

Elian López, 48, set out from the Cuban resort town of Varadero, where he was a diving instructor, on Tuesday, according to officials.

Family members in Miami who were aware of his journey alerted the US Coast Guard, which rescued the man on Wednesday, 15 miles south of Islamorada in the Florida Keys.

Mr López was equipped with a life jacket, GPS system, and multiple cell phones, which aided in the rescue, according to officials.

“He had safety equipment that is very needed for when we’re locating people,” Coast Guard petty officer Martin McAdams told WPLG.

The man left the island because he was unable to afford the medical care he needed in Cuba, according to his family.

“He launched himself into the sea on a surfboard yesterday in search of freedom, and above all in a delicate state with a disease that urgently needs medication, which he did not have in Cuba and led him to make this desperate decision,” family member Dunia Rodríguez wrote in Spanish on a Change.org page set up for Mr López.

“Please don’t send him back to Cuba, where the Dictatorship will Repress him and let him die. We all know that Cuba is a country where the totalitarian system is dragging Cubans to the worst misery in the History of the Humanity,” she added.

The United States’ six-decade trade embargo on Cuba has played a major part in limiting the ability of Cubans to get access to medical supplies.

The windsurfing migrant will likely be sent back to Cuba or a third country, under current US policy.

The Obama administration, as part of its efforts to normalise relations with the Cuban government, ended the controversial “wet foot, dry foot” policy enacted under President Bill Clinton in 1995, which put Cubans who made it to America on the fast track towards permanent US residency.

Since then, the US has been repatriating most Cubans to the island or a thirty-party nation, unless they have clear refugee claims.

“Any migrant intercepted at sea, regardless of their nationality, will not be permitted to enter the United States,” said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas last July. Mr Mayorkas is himself the son of refugees and was born in Cuba.

The number of Cubans seeking to enter the US by sea has increased, as the impacts of Covid, US sanctions, and widespread protests have inspired many to migrate.

More than 1,000 Cubans have been interdicted in US waters since October, according to the most recent Coast Guard data, well above the year-end totals for the past two years.