Cuba has said 32 of its citizens had been killed in the US attacks in Venezuela, including military or intelligence personnel – a rare public signal of Cuba’s importance to Venezuela and the Maduro government.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel of Cuba said the casualties were personnel from the country’s armed forces or its interior ministry who were on a mission at the request of Venezuela, according to Cuban state media.
“Our compatriots fulfilled their duty with dignity and heroism and fell, after fierce resistance, in direct combat against the attackers or as a result of the bombings,” Mr Díaz-Canel said. He announced two days of mourning.
The revelation was an exceptional public admission by Cuba – whose leftist government has deep, long-standing ties with Venezuela’s – that its agents are in the country.
READ MORE
For years, Cuba has sent thousands of its citizens to postings in Venezuela in exchange for oil. Many of them are teachers and doctors, but they also include intelligence agents and security guards.
[ The US attack on Venezuela threatens Chinese interests in more ways than oneOpens in new window ]
In the face of increasing US military pressure, president Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela had expanded Cuban bodyguards’ role in his personal security and placed more Cuban counter-intelligence agents in Venezuela’s military. The idea, in essence, was to protect himself from a coup.
Now it appears that some of those Cubans may have died when US forces swept in on Saturday. Venezuela said on Sunday that the preliminary death count in the attacks was 80 people. – This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
