A total of 32 Cuban nationals 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 Venezeula, “32 Cubans lost their lives in combat operations,” the Cuban government said in a statement read on national television.
The deceased were members of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces or the Ministry of the Interior who were carrying out missions “at the request of counterpart agencies,” Cuban officials said.
In a stunning US military operation Saturday, Maduro was extracted from Caracas along with his wife Cilia Flores to face charges of drug trafficking and terrorism in a New York court Monday.
The official Cuban statement stressed 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 at dawn Monday, and pledged to organize tributes.
“Honor and glory to the brave Cuban fighters whof ell facing terrorists in imperial uniform,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel wrote on X.
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© Agence France-Presse
