On July 13 1994 66 men, women, and children boarded the tugboat “13 de Marzo” at 3:00 am. They were trying to leave Cuba illegally. About 45 minutes after leaving port three other tug boats caught up to the “13 de Marzo” and started ramming it and flooding it with water hoses.
Within a few minutes the “13 de Marzo” had sunk, drowning 35 men, women, and childred. The 31 survivors were picked up and returned to shore, where the 20 surviving men were promptly jailed.
These events were witnessed by some on shore, and very soon every one in Havana was talking about the event. By mid-morning a few hundred people had gathered at Havana’s malecon, and soon the crowd started to chant “Freedom”, and march down the avenue. Fidel Castro himself showed up and tried to restore calm but had to be quickly carried out as the crowd surged towards his limousine. Shortly after Rapid Response Brigades, basically government thugs showed up and beat up and dispersed the crowd and arrested many. This event was called the “Maleconazo”, and was the only time I witnessed such a demonstration in Cuba.
The Cuban government claimed at different times that the “13 de Marzo” capsized and sunk on its own, that it was accidentally rammed by another tugboat and sank, and that it was in poor repair and sank because of that. Survivor accounts disagree with those statements.
Every July 13th since then relatives of the dead have tried to drop flowers in the ocean in remmemberance of the occasion and every time they have been stopped by the government from doing so and arrested.
As far as I have been able to tell this event was not big news outside of Cuba, and except for Amnesty International it is not even brought up.
You can see the Amnesty Internation report here . Please note the ages of the dead, and say a prayer for all.
