By Luisa Yanez Sun-Sentinel. Web-posted: 12:24 a.m. Sep. 19, 2000
MIAMI -- Unidentified rafters who perish while crossing the Florida Straits.
Cuban-born prison inmates who die in the United States and have no one to bury them.
Patriots at heart who want their homeland to be their final resting place.
Their return to Cuba can be arranged at the year-old Funeral Information Center in Little Havana, the only company in Florida using a U.S. Department of Treasury license to regularly transport the dead back and forth from the Caribbean island.
Business at the one-stop storefront at 1501 SW Eighth St. is booming, said general manager Rafaiy Alkhalifa.
"Everything about Cuba is slowly opening up, and that is also affecting our type of business," Alkhalifa said.
Arrangements to be sent back to Cuba for burial, although not unheard of, have not been common in the past.
But today, 20 to 30 deceased people are returned to Cuba for burial every month by the funeral company, which usually holds services for them first at one of its three funeral homes in Miami-Dade: Latina Nacional in Miami, La Cubana in Hialeah and La Catolica in Westchester.
But Alkhalifa said a brand-new niche is emerging: The dead buried in Cuba are being disinterred, moved to new caskets and sent to their loved ones in South Florida, where they are buried in cemeteries throughout the area.
"I would say we bring back about five or six deceased people per month from the island to Miami for burial," he said.
Moving a body between Cuba and Florida is not cheap. The total cost of the package is about $5,000, Alkhalifa said. Still, that's less expensive than a burial in the U.S., which averages between $6,000 and $8,000.
The customers who request the disinterment service are for the most part exiles, usually newer arrivals, who want to share their final resting place in the U.S. next to mothers, fathers and grandparents who died on the island.
One of the deceased who has been flown from Cuba to Miami is a woman who died several years ago; her daughter in Miami-Dade wants to bury her in a mausoleum here.
Another is a Haitian-American refugee who went to Cuba for free medical care, but died on the island, Alkhalifa said.
Luisa Yanez can be reached at lyanez@sun-sentinel.com or 954-385-7920.
Copyright 1999, Sun-Sentinel Co. & South Florida Interactive, Inc. | 