Bodies of 32 officers killed in US strike on Venezuela returned to Cuba

The remains of 32 Cuban officers who died during a US operation in Venezuela in early January have been returned to Havana.

AP writes about this.

Planes carrying the urns landed at Havana airport, where Cuban soldiers carried them out to the sound of trumpets and drums. Thousands of people gathered along one of the cityʼs main streets, before the urns were transported to the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces.

The dead were part of the security detail of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. They were at his residence during a US raid on January 3, when American forces captured Maduro and took him to the United States to face trial on drug trafficking charges.

Mass funerals of this scale are rare in Cuba, with authorities having organized them only a handful of times in the past half century. Cuban state television also showed wounded members of the operation, who had been flown in from Venezuela the day before, along with Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez.

One of them, Colonel Pedro Yadín Domínguez, was in a wheelchair. He said the attack was “disproportionate” and that 11 of his comrades had died in their sleep. He said Cuba must remain united in the face of threats from the United States.

• Cuba on January 5 announced the death of 32 of its citizens during the capture of the Venezuelan president by the United States. According to the authorities, all the dead were military personnel and intelligence officers. Venezuelan Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said on the evening of January 7 that 100 people died as a result of the US operation on January 3.
• Cuba has provided security for Nicolas Maduro for years. However, it is not yet clear how many Cubans were directly with him during the US operation and how many died elsewhere.

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