MIAMI, 17 (AP) - Some of the 11 people who died during the voyage that brought 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez to the United States from Cuba gave their lives to save his, one of the trip's three survivors said.
``We, the men, were protecting him so the waves didn't hit him in the face and he did not drink the (salt) water,'' Nivaldo Fernandez Ferran said in an interview broadcast Monday by ``Dateline NBC.''
When their boat began to sink, they were able to save one water bottle, and only Elian was allowed to drink the fresh water, he said. Among the people who died after high waves and heavy winds capsized their 17-foot aluminum boat were Elian's mother and stepfather.
Ferran and his girlfriend came ashore near Key Biscayne on Nov. 23. Elian was later found clinging to an inner tube offshore and has been at the center of an international custody battle ever since.
His father and the Cuban government are demanding his return. Attorney General Janet Reno and President Clinton have backed a decision made by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to return the boy to the island nation. Elian's Miami relatives and several Cuban exile groups are trying to
keep him in the United States.
After the boat sank, two inner tubes were tied together to form a raft, which the would-be immigrants used to stay afloat for two days.
``We were there all morning and afternoon and part of the night,'' Ferran said. ``Many people had swallowed water. They were delirious from fatigue.''
Ferran said one of the men started hallucinating so much that he thought he saw land and swam off into the night.
``He was thirsty and hungry and he thought that land was close. ... He said, 'Look, land is there, it's close,''' Ferran said. ``We told him, 'No, we're in the middle of the ocean.' He said, 'Yes, yes, there it is. I can reach it.' And he swam and we didn't see him.''
AP-NY-01-17-00 2148EST
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