A woman and a 5-year-old girl are dead, and the child's mother is hanging on to life at a Villa Clara hospital, according to relatives in the Miami area.
Neither body has been recovered. The six others are back in Cuba, four of them under arrest.
``It's a terrible accident,'' said Roberto Tirado of Hialeah, the father of the dead child, Lady Lourdes Tirado.
Roberto Tirado came to South Florida two years ago after a stay at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay. His wife, Odalys Hernandez, 28, is reported to be in critical condition.
``The boat was not attacked,'' he said. ``Unlike previous instances, the Cuban government didn't have a hand in this case.''
The dead woman has been identified as Mayra Rodriguez, 41. Her husband, Florentino Lopez, and their son, Saydi Lopez, 10, survived.
Four men in the group and the truck driver who took everyone from Villa Clara to Matanzas are under arrest in Villa Clara. Florentino Lopez was questioned and released, but remains under surveillance.
According to Tirado, the group bought a boat Friday in the city of Sagua la Grande. On Saturday, they traveled west to Itabo, near the city of Cardenas, in Matanzas province, where they put out to sea.
``Everything was improvised,'' Tirado told The Herald. ``I had no idea what they were going to do.''
Shortly setting out, the boat overturned in the rough seas. Tirado does not know what kind of craft it was.
``Two men swam to shore to get help. They left my wife tied to the boat . . . and tied my daughter to her. But the girl slipped away and has not been found,'' Tirado said.
``The girl was always asking [her mother] to come here and join me,'' he said. ``I always told them to wait until they could find a sure way to come.
``Apparently, [my wife] made a rash decision -- and look what happened.''
Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald