Havana. According to as yet unconfirmed information, two Cuban doctors were killed in an air strike on a suspected al-Shabab militia camp in Somalia. At a press conference by the Cuban Ministry of Health reportedthat several unofficial sources suggested this.
The general practitioner Assel Herrera Correa and the surgeon Landy Rodríguez Hernández were kidnapped in April 2019 in the municipality of Mandera in Kenya. Now the Islamist al-Shabab militia published a statement in which it stated that the two captured doctors had died in one of the air strikes that the US Command Center for Africa (Africom) repeatedly carries out in Somalia.
Cuban Health Minister José Angel Portal Miranda said that although they were aware of the drone attacks, reports of the deadly consequences had not yet been confirmed. Therefore, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said at the weekend that he continued to hope that the doctors were alive. As long as there is no official confirmation of her death, the search will continue. The Cuban authorities are in constant contact with their Kenyan and Somali counterparts.
With the aim of gaining clarity about the case, Esteban Lazo Hernández has already traveled to Kenya as a high-ranking special envoy. Hernández is Speaker of the Cuban National Assembly and President of the State Council of Cuba. He will hold discussions with the highest authorities in this country and seek clarification.
The two Cuban doctors are part of the “medical internationalism” that Cuba has long practiced, in which health care professionals in other, predominantly poor countries ensure and develop vital health care there. Over six decades, around 600,000 employees in 165 countries have carried out their service with great success.
If the deaths of the two doctors are confirmed, the question still remains to be clarified as to who is responsible. In addition to the theory that the doctors could have died as a result of a US drone attack, the al-Shabab militia could also be directly responsible for the deaths. Halqabsi News speculated that the militia may have executed the Cuban doctors “after years of captivity.”
Africom, based in Stuttgart, Germany, has been carrying out drone attacks in Somalia since 2007. According to a report by Amnesty International, civilians are increasingly becoming victims of these attacks. Therefore, opponents of the al-Shabab militia would also reject the drone attacks.
Meanwhile, a broad alliance of solidarity organizations in the US is calling on their government in Washington to cooperate with the investigation and to provide Cuba with all information about the attack. The call, also supported by the Cuba Solidarity Movement in Germany, states: “This attack shows once again that Cuba’s foreign policy is to save lives, while the US foreign policy is to occupy, bomb, blockade and destroy lives As Cuban leader Fidel Castro said: Our country does not drop bombs on other peoples or send thousands of planes to bomb cities… Tens of thousands of Cuban doctors have provided internationalist services in the most remote and inhospitable places.. . Doctors, no bombs.”