Four men survive nine-day ordeal

 BY ELAINE DE VALLE AND ANA ACLE

 Two Cuban men were found dead five miles off Key Biscayne after their
 6-by-6-foot raft had been at sea for nine days without supplies.

 Four survivors were also found on the small craft. One of them was rushed in a
 Coast Guard boat to the Miami Beach station and was in critical condition late
 Friday at South Shore Hospital, where he was treated for severe dehydration and
 exposure.

 The others were given medical attention on the Coast Guard Cutter Matagorda.
 They told the Coast Guard that they lost their supplies on their first day at sea.

 The Coast Guard had not identified the men late Friday, but some Hialeah
 residents say their relatives were among the rafters because they left a beach in
 Guanabo, Cuba, in a group of six nine days ago.

 ``I am just asking God that he is one of the ones who survived,'' said Carmen
 Lopez, 78, of Hialeah, who believes her son, Jorge Travieso Lopez, 36, was on the
 raft. She and the other relatives waited anxiously Friday night at the Miami Beach
 Coast Guard station to learn the names.

 The incident is the latest in a string of rafter tragedies since a recent upsurge in
 illegal immigration to South Florida. Authorities counted at least 59 rafter deaths
 in 1999.

 Among the most recent were the deaths of at least 10 Haitians who either
 suffocated or jumped off an overcrowded fishing boat in December and the deaths
 of 11 Cubans in the November shipwreck survived by 6-year-old Elian Gonzalez --
 who lost his mother -- and two unrelated adults.

 MEN SPOTTED

 Coast Guard spokesman Luis Diaz said the rafters were first spotted at 3:10 p.m.
 by someone in a pleasure craft about five miles south of Key Biscayne, just south
 of Fowey Light Rock.

 Diaz said the man taken to South Shore Hospital was the most seriously ill.

 ``He is the worst-looking of the lot. He's in very bad shape,'' he said. ``He is
 severely dehydrated, very slender, well-burnt.

 ``He is the youngest of the group. He told us he's 19 years old.''

 Cuban American National Foundation member Mario Miranda -- who went to the
 station to try to get information about the men -- followed the Miami Beach
 fire-rescue vehicle to the hospital where staff members identified the man as
 Ernesto Ramos.

 The other three remained on the Coast Guard cutter Friday. Diaz said they were
 in better shape than the 19-year-old.

 ``They are in stable condition. They are drinking water on their own,'' he said.

 The Coast Guard said the men will be interviewed before any decision is made on
 whether they will be repatriated. An immigration official will interview the men
 today aboard the cutter, and find out their names and ages.

 It is likely, based on current immigration policy, that the rafter who was
 hospitalized will be allowed to stay because he came ashore.

 WAITING FOR WORD

 Yolanda Romero of Hialeah was among the group waiting for word at the Coast
 Guard Station. She believes she saw her brother, Jorge Travieso, on the television
 news.

 ``I know it's them because it's six of them and they left nine days ago,'' said
 Romero, as she gripped a pad of paper on a magnetic clip that had been hanging
 on her refrigerator since last week. On it she had scribbled the phone numbers of
 the Coast Guard, INS, Krome detention center and Brothers to the Rescue, and
 the names of five of the six men in her brother's group.

 The other names given to her by relatives in Cuba are Victor Manuel Bermudez
 Pabon, Jorge Nicolas Gonzalez Agrerebel, Jeinier Alvarez and Oscar Lazaro
 Garcia.

 She said one of the men was not from the same neighborhood of El Cotorro in
 Havana and they did not know who he was.

 ``I have been watching the news every day, calling Krome every day,'' she said.

 Her brother first hinted about the plan on Feb. 16, when he called her and asked
 for money for an ``operation.'' It was code, she said. She sent $200 through
 Western Union and heard again from him on the next day.

 ``He said, `Hermana, I didn't get the operation yesterday, but today I will.' ''

 Then at 7 p.m. Feb. 17, her brother's wife called. ``She said she sent me the
 medicine. There was six of them. And to let her know when they arrived.'' Again, it
 was code.

 She called the relative of another rafter, a woman who also lives in Hialeah.

 RELATIVE ANXIOUS

 Maydelin Izquierdo, 30, also went to the Miami Beach station late Friday
 expecting to see Alvarez, 21, her husband's son-in-law.

 ``He left his wife in Cuba and she just gave birth last month. She doesn't know
 anything yet,'' Izquierdo said. ``It has to be them. Six of them, nine days. It all
 coincides.''

 She prayed Friday night that he was one of the men still alive.

 Romero said her brother would surely be jailed if he were returned to the island.
 She said he was caught twice trying to leave illegally and served a two-year
 sentence for the second attempt.

 She said her brother was also awaiting trial on charges he bought five pounds of
 pork on the black market -- and that the government was recommending five
 years in prison.

 ``This is the third time he tries. I think he has paid enough. He deserves liberty,''
 Romero said. ``If they send him back, that's it -- they will let my brother rot in jail.''