Cuba seeks more info from US on doctors abducted in Kenya

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Friday June 14, 2024

Assel Herrera Corea and surgeon Landy Rodriguez Hernandez

Havana on Thursday rejected as insufficient a recent statement from the United States over the fate of two Cuban doctors kidnapped in Kenya five years ago by Somalia-based jihadists.

The Al-Shabaab militant group claimed in February that doctors Assel Herrera and Landy Rodriguez were killed that same month in a US bombardment of the city of Jilib.

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But the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) said in a recent report that a review of available information concluded that "the US air strike conducted on Feb 15, 2024 did not result in civilian harm."

The Granma newspaper, a mouthpiece of the Cuban government, said in an article Thursday that the AFRICOM statement "does not mention the Cuban doctors explicitly."

And Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said on X Wednesday that the US report "adds nothing new," adding Havana has been waiting since April "for an inquiry that #Cuba officially requested about AFRICOM attacks" elsewhere in Somalia.

The claims by the Islamist group, which has been waging a bloody insurgency against the fragile central government in Mogadishu for 16 years, could not be independently verified.

The doctors were part of a 100-member Cuban medical brigade working in Kenya under a bilateral agreement when they were taken in April 2019.

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