Four people were killed and seven others were wounded after a motorboat from the US state of Florida entered Cuban territorial waters on Sunday and its passengers opened fire on Cuban forces, the Interior Ministry in Havana said, Reuters reported.
The four dead and six of the wounded were aboard the motorboat.
The seventh wounded person is the commander of a Cuban patrol boat, Cuban authorities said.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that he had been informed of the incident involving Cuban soldiers and that the United States was now collecting its own information to determine if the victims were American citizens or permanent residents, the Associated Press reported.
“Various elements of the US government are trying to establish details of what happened that may not be available to us at this time,“ Rubio said at Basseterre airport in the island nation of St. Kitts and Nevis.
Trump's top diplomat declined to speculate on what happened, saying it could be “a wide range of things” and that the US would not rely solely on the information provided so far by Cuban authorities.
“Suffice it to say, it is highly unusual to see gunfire on the high seas. "This is not something that happens every day," he added.
Four people aboard a Florida-registered boat were shot dead and six others were wounded yesterday in Cuban territorial waters in a shootout with border guards, the Cuban Interior Ministry said.