By SANCHESKA DORSETT

Tribune Staff Reporter

sdorsett@tribunemedia.net

IMMIGRATION Director William Pratt yesterday called Saturday’s escape of three Cuban men from the Carmichael Road Detention Centre an “eye opener” and said his department is now looking into ways to “better secure the facility” to prevent future incidents.

In an interview with The Tribune, Mr Pratt said security footage revealed that the men “scaled the wall” to escape the facility and the Department of Immigration is still investigating whether the men received assistance from the inside.

The Royal Bahamas Police Force and the Royal Bahamas Defence Force are still on the hunt for Carlos Daniel Abreus, Yoel Valerio Hurtado and Roberto Azcorra Consuegra who escaped between 3am and 4am early Saturday morning.

“We reviewed the cameras and they scaled the wall, they jumped or climbed over it, we aren’t sure, but they got over the wall,” Mr Pratt said.

“Police are still investigating, the men are still on the loose, the search is ongoing. The Coast Guard picked them up and brought them to us. They were trying to get to Miami, Florida when they were intercepted. We are going to repatriate them to Cuba this week. We are now looking to put some additional security measures in place. The building is too close to the wall but we will put extra measures in place. I cannot talk about them obviously but this was an eye opener. We will put some additional measures in place.”

In April 2016, five Cubans escaped from the Carmichael Road Detention Centre, but were recaptured two days later by armed forces.

Authorities found four of them hiding in the ceiling of an abandoned building in western New Providence while a fifth man was taken into custody when he was found wandering in the vicinity of the Detention Centre. He led officials to a dilapidated villa in western New Providence where the four other Cubans had been hiding.

Earlier this year, statistics from the Department of Immigration indicated the repatriations of Cubans had skyrocketed in 2016, which showed that total repatriations increased by some 80 per cent over 2015.

At the time, then Foreign Affairs and Immigration Minister Fred Mitchell said the department believed that the more than 700 per cent rise in repatriations of Cuban nationals in 2016 was driven by anticipation that the United States’ “wet foot/dry foot” policy was coming to an end.

The Department of Immigration repatriated 1,287 Cubans in 2016, a stark increase over the 153 persons repatriated in 2015.