Cuba repatriates remains of 32 citizens killed in U.S. strikes in Venezuela

Cuban national television broadcast the return on Thursday morning of the remains of 32 Cuban citizens killed in U.S. strikes in Venezuela during the early‑morning Jan. 3 operation to capture the ousted Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro. The remains arrived in smaller boxes draped in the Cuban flag and were shown in a motorcade.

The Cubans had served as part of Maduro’s security detail, the report said. For years Cuba has sent thousands of its citizens to Venezuela — including teachers, doctors, intelligence agents and security guards — and The New York Times reported in December that Mr. Maduro had expanded the role of Cuban bodyguards and added Cuban counterintelligence agents amid growing U.S.

military pressure. The remains were received at Havana’s international airport by Cuban President Miguel Díaz‑Canel and the country’s Minister of the Interior, Maj. Gen. Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas, among other senior Communist Party officials. Mr. Álvarez said at the airport: “The enemy speaks euphorically of high‑precision operations, of elite troops, of supremacy.

We, on the other hand, speak of faces, of families who lost their father, their son, their husband, their brother.” The ousting of Mr. Maduro has cut Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba, a loss experts say has left the Cuban economy in “free fall.” On Sunday, President Trump posted that “no more oil or money” would be going to Cuba from Venezuela and that the U.S.

Key Topics

World, Cuba, Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, Miguel Díaz-canel, U.s. Strikes