NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) — The Bahamas today deported 61 Cuban refugees to their communist homeland, a day after Nicaragua said it offered temporary asylum to dozens of Cuban boat people at a Nassau detention camp.

The deportations — the second since Monday — came despite Nicaragua's insistence late Wednesday that it had notified the Bahamas' foreign minister that it would accept the Cubans.

The move also was sure to anger Cuban exiles in the United States, who were working to get third-country visas for the Cubans and were jubilant when Nicaraguan President Arnoldo Aleman made his announcement in Miami.

Carlton Wright, a Bahamian foreign affairs spokesman, said today the Bahamas had received no official word on visas from the Nicaraguan government. A senior Bahamian official had said late Wednesday that the repatriations would continue.

The 61 Cuban men, women and children sat calmly in a departure lounge at Nassau's international airport before boarding a chartered jet for the flight to Havana.

"I didn't expect it. I was hoping to stay here in the Bahamas, but you know they didn't accept me and now they are sending me back," said Eduardo Villasoso, 33. "I feel sad and a little angry."

Sixty-five Cubans, including three baseball players courted by U.S. sports agents, were deported Monday, ending a nearly five-month lull in repatriations under a 1996 accord with Cuba.

Cuban exile groups say the returnees face retaliation.

The Bahamas had rejected all of the Cubans for political asylum after U.N. refugee workers determined they were economic refugees, and had not been subject to political persecution in Cuba.

Hundreds of refugees flee Cuba by raft or boat every year.