Mogadishu/Havana/Today, Wednesday, the US military command in Africa (AFRICOM) published a report on its operations denying that the two Cuban doctors who were kidnapped by the jihadist Al-Shabaab movement in Somalia died in one of the air attacks it launched in the region on February 15. . As the US authorities stated earlier, the report confirms that an explosion occurred near the town of Jilib (south), where the doctors were supposed to have died, but they denied that this attack caused their deaths, as the terrorists claimed.
“On February 17, 2024, the command received a report from a digital media outlet that civilians had been killed as a result of a US military operation in the vicinity of Jilib, Somalia, on February 15, 2024,” AFRICOM stated. “The command completed a review of the available information and concluded that the US airstrike carried out on February 15, 2024 did not cause harm to civilians,” the report concluded.
On February 17, Al-Shabaab confirmed that two Cuban doctors kidnapped by that organization in 2019 died in an air attack by the United States military in Somalia, information that was not officially confirmed by the authorities of that country. “The aerial bombardment, which began around 00:10 local time, targeted a house in Jilib and immediately led to the deaths of Asil Herrera and Landy Rodriguez, who were captured on April 12, 2019” in northern Kenya, the jihadist group said in a statement.
Al-Shabaab confirmed that two Cuban doctors who were kidnapped by that organization in 2019 were killed in the air attack.
Al-Shabaab also published two photos of the alleged body of Herrera Correa, with a naked torso and traces of blood on his body, after the attack by American drones. The jihadists also accused the United States of targeting their prisoners, and confirmed that in previous years it had attacked at least two of their enclaves to achieve this goal.
Surgeon Landy Rodriguez Hernandez and general medicine specialist Asil Herrera Correa were kidnapped on April 12, 2019 in the Kenyan city of Mandera, on the border with Somalia and which has been the target of jihadist attacks in the past. The two doctors were traveling, as was their custom, in a convoy heading to Mandera Hospital under the protection of an armed guard, when they were intercepted after an exchange of gunfire in which a police officer who was ensuring their safety was killed.
In May 2019, traditional leaders from Kenya and Somalia who traveled to the Somali region of Jubbaland, controlled by Al-Shabaab, to negotiate on behalf of doctors, admitted that they had seen doctors providing medical care to local people. According to the mediators, the kidnappers demanded $1.5 million as a condition for their release, the Kenyan press reported at the time.
Herrera and Rodriguez were part of a contingent of one hundred Cuban professionals who arrived in Kenya in 2018.
Herrera and Rodriguez were part of a contingent of 100 Cuban specialists who arrived in Kenya in 2018 in implementation of a bilateral agreement to improve access to specialized health services in the African country. For its part, the Cuban authorities explained that since the kidnapping of the health workers, the government has made “tremendous” efforts to return them. When the US attack became known, Parliament Speaker Esteban Lazo traveled to Kenya to learn details about the doctors, but the fruits of that meeting and other “collaborations” they referred to remained eluded the population.
Regarding this latest statement issued by AFRICOM, the Cuban Foreign Ministry and the official press have not yet provided any response.
The United States has been participating in military operations against Al-Shabaab, in cooperation with the Somali army, since at least 2007. Somalia is witnessing an intensification of military attacks against the terrorist group after Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud announced in August 2022 a “comprehensive attack.” The war against jihadists.
Since then, AFRICOM has carried out numerous airstrikes against Al-Shabaab. The terrorist group, linked to Al-Qaeda since 2012, frequently carries out attacks in the capital Mogadishu and elsewhere in the country to overthrow the central government – supported by the international community – and establish an Islamic state. The group controls rural areas in central and southern Somalia, and also attacks neighboring countries such as Kenya and Ethiopia.
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