CARDENAS, Cuba (AP) -- As the world watches an international
                  custody battle over Cuban shipwreck survivor Elian Gonzalez, another child
                  who started out on the same boat is at the center of a debate across the
                  Florida Straits.

                  Estefani Herrera is a 5-year-old girl with curly hair that flies in the wind as
                  she races into her grandmother's arms. Their house is just a kilometer (mile)
                  from where Elian's father lives in Cardenas.

                  Estefani's mother, Arianne Horta, initially took the child with her on the boat
                  trip to the United States in late November. But when the boat had problems
                  and had to return to shore, she decided to leave Estefani behind, hoping to
                  send for her later, she told a Miami news conference on Friday.

                  On the second attempt to reach the United States, the boat sank, killing 11 people.

                  Only 6-year-old Elian, Horta, 22, and her boyfriend Nivaldo Fernandez
                  survived. Fernandez left a wife and two children behind in Cuba, according
                  to Cuba's state-run Radio Rebelde.

                  Another wrenching separation

                  In her news conference, Horta appealed for help in reuniting with Estefani:
                  "From the moment she was born, she slept with me every night. Do you
                  know how I feel?"

                  Horta appealed for a way to bring her daughter to the United States as soon
                  as possible. Once she is a legal resident, she could apply to bring Estefani to
                  the United States. That process might keep the girl in Cuba for more than a
                  year, even if no one objects to her departure.

                  But back home in Cardenas, the child's grandmother and father, too, insist
                  they love the child and balk at the idea of giving her up, at least right now.

                  "I would not like it to be so soon," said the grandmother, Elsa Alfonso.
                  "Well, that doesn't mean that in the future I am going to refuse it because she
                  is her mother."

                  She said she would like to see her daughter is "stable someplace, that she
                  has work," before the child leaves. Horta and Estefani, her only daughter
                  and granddaughter, lived in her house.

                  The father, Victor Herrera, is more certain.

                  "I'm the father, and she has gone. If I have to take her into my house, I will
                  take her," he said at the Varadero hotel where he tends a bar facing the
                  famed Caribbean beach -- a coveted job in Cuba, especially because he
                  receives some income in dollars. He and Estefani's mother separated shortly
                  after the girl was born.

                  Alfonso seemed torn by a sense of joy at her daughter's survival and a sense
                  of loss at having her far away, with the prospect that her only granddaughter
                  might be leaving.

                  "I have always believed in God and after what happened with my daughter, I
                  believe much more," she said.

                  The mutual affection is also obvious between Alfonso and the child who
                  tightly hugged her around the neck before racing out to play with friends.

                  Strong role of grandmothers

                  Partly because a housing shortage often forces young married couples to
                  share a home with their parents, grandmothers in Cuba often play a far
                  greater role in child-rearing than they might in the United States

                  "I raised my granddaughter. My granddaughter never was in anybody else's
                  house," she said.

                  Estefani "loves her grandmother very much," said the father, Herrera. "And
                  she also loved her mother very much. I imagine she is missing her."

                  But he, too, said he loves his daughter and spends his free days with her.

                  When he heard that her mother had fled for the United States, "I went
                  quickly to the house to see if the girl was there. When I saw her, I felt such
                  relief," he said.

                  Alfonso said she has two brothers who live in the United States, and a
                  husband who works for Cuba's Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the
                  country's security.

                  "Politics has nothing to do with sentiment," she said. But she admitted
                  Horta's departure had been hard on her husband.

                  Alfonso was angered by suggestions the case might be similar to that of
                  Elian, whose great-uncle in Miami is trying to prevent the child from being
                  returned to his father and grandparents in Cuba.

                  "That is criminal," she said. "They are going to deny him a right to a future."

                    Copyright 2000 The Associated Press.