They began pulling survivors and bodies from half-inflated life rafts and out of the water.
Spotters on both sides update smugglers on the movements of law enforcement and rafts of families are dispatched to distract the border patrol so drugs can be moved across in unguarded places a little further along the river.
Moving in the other direction are thousands of impoverished Cubans in makeshift boats and rafts, risking their lives to flee the communist island despite a five-month-old thaw in relations with America that both governments hope will bring more prosperity to Cuba.
Dozens of bamboo rafts list on the river, waiting for visitors to arrive as summer approaches.
Human Rights Watch and others have sent rafts of letters to the government, but none has received a reply.Many other critics suspect that the AL's seemingly vindictive treatment of Nobel prize-winning economist, Muhammad Yunus, may also have pushed America towards withdrawing the GSP.
Nowadays few of them risk their lives in rafts or rubber tyres to cross the Florida straits.
The little flotilla, bolstered by support trucks and modern rafts, made its way to Turkey's border with Syria, at which point the boats were moved overland to avoid the fighting.
In some cases children have floated across the Rio Grande on rafts in full view of agents on the banks, says Doris Meissner of MPI.Draconian policies, perverse effectsIf the explanation for the influx is complicated, the politics of it are brutally straightforward.
The port is best known as the setting for a massive boatlift in 1980 when, over a period of six months, 125,000 Cubans set off in flimsy rafts as Fidel Castro turned a temporary blind eye to those wanting to leave his poor one-party state.
For one, rafts of lawsuits seemed inevitable, from Enron's shareholders, its pensioners (whose fund had invested in Enron shares) and others.
The Selinda spillway fills with floodwaters from the Angolan hills once every 20 or 30 years, bringing tilapia, hippos, pelicans, snub-nosed ducks and rafts of water lily which locals eat as a delicacy.
