The Silence of the Sea: Migrants Who Go Missing
HAVANA TIMES – On January 3, 2023, Sandra’s* son decided to embark for the United States, together with another 24 Cubans. Their point of departure was Hoyo Colorado, a small community in the Marti municipality of Matanzas. Their destiny was uncertain, but all of them shared the hopes of finding a better place to live.
Sandra’s face is creased with worry lines. She can barely speak without her voice breaking. “I knew he was desperate, but I never thought he’d risk his life that way. He didn’t even tell me. He just left, and since that night, I never heard from him again.” The night before he left, he didn’t breathe a work about his plans. “I thought he was tired; that he had worries, like any young person here. But it never crossed my mind that was the last night I’d see him.”
Sandra’s son wasn’t the only one to take to the sea on that improvised raft, cobbled together with whatever they could find. None of them returned. None of them has ever given any signs of life.
From that day forward, Sandra’s life became one long wait. I don’t know if I’m alive or dead. I don’t know if he’s lost somewhere. I don’t know anything,” she repeats over and over again like a mantra. “Every day is a torment, a succession of hours in which there’s no news – neither good nor bad – only a vacuum, impossible to fill.”
A special report by El Toque, “Emigrating: a life or death decision,” offers a definition of the term “missing.” “A migrant is considered missing when there’s no news of their arrival, but there’s no body to confirm the death. In the best cases, they’re merely detained by the authorities; they can even be in custody for months without anything being known about them.”
Since the beginning of 2024, at least 291 migrants have disappeared or lost their lives in the dangerous waters of the Caribbean, according to the International Organization for Migration’s Missing Migrants Project. Their data indicates a rise of 18% in comparison with the 247 cases documented in 2023, illustrating the growing risk of these crossings. The most lethal route is the passage between Cuba and the United States, where 142 deaths have been confirmed at the time of the 2024 report.
For many years of our history, the most frequently used route for irregular migration between Cuba and the United States has been the maritime one. Between September 28, 1965 and November 15 of that year, some 2,979 Cubans took to sea from Camarioca, in the first of several massive exoduses over the Florida Straits. In 1980, during the Mariel exodus, it’s calculated that approximately 125,000 Cubans left the island. Fourteen years later, in 1994, over 30,000 Cubans participated in the well-known “Cuban rafter crisis.”
The emotional impact on the families is overwhelming: the grief of loss is amplified by the permanent uncertainty of not knowing what happened, and the impotence of not having any kind of official space to go in search of information. In addition, fear of denouncing the departure to the authorities paralyzes the victims, creating constant anguish.
The best thing that could happen would be for them to tell me it’s over
“… They didn’t find me? / No, they never found me / But it was known that the sixth moon fled upstream / and that the ocean suddenly remembered / the names of all its drowned.” – Federico Garcia Lorca
When the disappearances occur in the course of illegal exits from the country, the possibility of receiving help searching are very limited. This is evident in the case of Sandra. “I can’t go to the police, nor the Coast Guard, nor anywhere. They tell us that they had it coming, that they knew the risks. But – What other option did he have?”
International humanitarian law enshrines families’ right to know the destiny of their missing loved ones, a right that should be respected and protected. Governments are the principal parties responsible for preventing such disappearances, and for providing information to the families, after doing everything possible to clarify what happened.
“In the eyes of the government, we don’t exist, nor our children either. We don’t matter to them. What they care about is not having problems, not having scandals.” The official Cuban media rarely reports on cases of missing migrants, which makes it more difficult for families to obtain information about their loved ones.
In the Cuban context, the recommendations for families is to follow closely the reports of the US Coast Guard and Border Patrol, as well as reports in the independent media. Due to unintentional drifting from the routes they intended to follow, many rafters end up in countries such as the Bahamas or Mexico. In such situations, the Bahama Royal Defense Force or Mexico’s National Migration Institute generally offer information regarding operations involving Cuban migrants. Because of that, paying attention to their posts is recommended. El Toque’s special report “Emigrating: a life or death decision,” maintains a database of migrants who have disappeared or perished on the journey.
According to the pro-government newspaper Juventud Rebelde, families seeking information about those missing at sea can use the 107 emergency line that the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) established in 2014 to deal with such cases. Calls to this number are free, from both landlines and cell phones, and it’s a service used to report maritime emergencies, such as disappearances or shipwrecks. Calls are answered by the Maritime Search and Rescue Coordination Center, part of the Coast Guard headquarters, which makes it easier to verify whether local authorities have participated in search and rescue operations.
In her modest home, where time seems to have stood still since her son’s departure, Sandra keeps the few mementos of him she has left. “His room is still the same, I haven’t touched anything.” She confesses that sometimes she waits for his return, although she knows it’s useless. Every object reminds her of what she has lost, and what she is reluctant to forget. “He was always a good son,” she says, looking at a photo. “Hardworking, loving. He didn’t deserve this.”
Sandra clings to her memories like a lifeline, because they’re all she has left. “Sometimes I think the best thing would be for them to tell me it’s over, not to wait for him anymore. But how do you stop waiting for a child? You can’t.”
We lost them to the sea and later we lost them to the silence
“The silence of the sea / roars a never-ending judgment / more condensed than the inside of a pitcher / more implacable than two drops // Shall the horizon draw closer or present us / the blue death of jellyfish / our doubts leave it not. // The sea listens as though it were deaf / aloof as a god / it outlives all the survivors.” – Mario Benedetti
Sandra’s reality is that of more than a few mothers who have watched their children leave in search of a better life. “We lose them to the sea, and later we lose them to the silence.” The lack of information, the fact that their disappearance doesn’t figure in any official register increases the families’ suffering. “If I at least knew that he was dead, I could officially mourn him. But this is like dying a little each day, not knowing anything, not having anyone to ask, without a grave where I could go and weep for him.”
The Missing Persons Project affirms that without a physical place like a cemetery or monument to recall a person, the family members also face the risk of the missing person’s memory fading over time. The lack of certainty regarding the fate of the missing person generates a vacuum in the social identity of the family members. In contrast with those whose loss of a loved one has been confirmed so they can identify as mourners, the families of the missing are left in social limbo.
Sandra can’t abandon hope, although as time passes it becomes ever more difficult to sustain it. “Every time someone says they saw news of a group of Cubans who reached some place, my heart leaps.” The illusion that her son is among the survivors revives briefly, although disappointment always follows. “And even though I find out later that it’s not him, I keep hoping.” The prolonged hope, charged with uncertainty, has become her constant companion.
That uncertainty is perhaps the most devastating part of her situation. She doesn’t know if her son is alive, if he was detained, if he was shipwrecked, or if he managed to reach some distant coast. “We don’t have any resources here – there are no lawyers, no organizations to support us. We’re alone.”
Although religious faith was never a pillar of her life, she now clings to anything that comforts her. “I ask God to send him back to me, even in a dream, to know if he’s alright, or at least in peace.” Religion now occupies the space that should be assumed by government responsibility.
The sea that has given so much to Cuba has also taken too much. It has been transformed into a nameless tomb for the Cubans who have risked everything for a new life. The sea, silent and cruel, holds the secrets of those who dared to defy it. Sandra is still waiting to know the fate of her son. “I just want to know what happened to him. That’s not a lot to ask.” Yet every day she must face the same thing: the silence.
Note all names mentioned have been changed at the request of those who participated.
First published in Spanish be El Toque and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.
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