No fewer than 32 Cubans were killed during the US attack on Caracas that culminated in the capture of Venezuela’s president, Nicolas Maduro, the government in Havana said Sunday.
“As a result of the criminal attack carried out by the government of the United States” against Venezuela, “32 Cubans lost their lives in combat operations,” the Cuban government said in a statement read on national television.
Members of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces or the Ministry of the Interior were killed while carrying out missions “at the request of counterpart agencies,” according to Cuban officials.
In a spectacular US military operation Saturday, Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, were taken from Caracas and brought to New York to face drug trafficking and terrorism accusations on Monday.
The official Cuban statement emphasized that the soldiers had “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” carried out by the United States.
Havana has declared two days of national mourning beginning on Monday, and pledged to organise tributes.
“Honor and glory to the brave Cuban fighters who fell facing terrorists in imperial uniform,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on X.
