The president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, arrived in Cuba this Saturday, as part of a tour that took him to Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize, to discuss the migration issue and strengthen political ties with the island.
The visit of the Mexican president takes place just hours after the explosion at the Saratoga hotel, which so far has registered the death of 27 people, 19 missing and more than 80 injured. López Obrador arrives at a time when citizen pressure is growing inside and outside the island to declare national mourning.
However, the agenda of the president of Mexico, despite the sinister that mourns the country, includes ceremonies before the Monument to José Martí in the Plaza de la Revolución and welcome in the Palace of the Revolution.
The Mexican president will also meet with his counterpart, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and will receive the José Martí Order, the highest decoration awarded by the Island Government.
The visit of the Mexican president occurs just hours after the explosion at the Saratoga hotel, which so far has recorded the death of 27 people, 19 missing and more than 80 injured
“The collapse of the Saratoga hotel in Havana has been a national tragedy. The fundamental damage is irreparable. The loss of human lives, including children, adds pain to an entire country and countless families today destroyed,” argued the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, which joined the campaign this Sunday to declare three days of mourning on the island.
Other activists, independent journalists and artists have flooded social networks with the same claim. “Why hasn’t a national mourning been decreed in Cuba yet?” Yoani Sánchez, director of 14ymedio. “The question worries thousands of citizens on this island who we see with pain how the death toll in the Saratoga hotel explosion continues to grow as the hours go by,” the reporter wrote in a post that has been shared by hundreds of Internet users
López Obrador and the entourage that accompanies him were received this Saturday by the Cuban Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodríguez, at the José Martí International Airport in Havana. The Mexican president arrived on a military plane and made no statement.
The Mexican president is expected to return to his country this Sunday night.
“The collapse of the Saratoga hotel in Havana has been a national tragedy. The fundamental damage is irreparable”
López Obrador’s visit also occurs in the midst of the migration crisis that has Mexico as one of the routes chosen by Cuban migrants in their attempt to reach the United States.
The prelude to the visit was the XV meeting of the Working Group on Bilateral Migratory and Consular Affairs, which took place in Mexico City a month ago.
According to Cuban authorities, the North American country has returned 975 irregular migrants to the island so far this year, through 15 repatriation operations.
Experts consulted by Efe affirm that López Obrador’s stay will reinforce the uninterrupted bilateral political relationship in force for 120 years, despite the ups and downs of the right-wing Vicente Fox’s mandate (2000-2006).
The subsequent return of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) to the presidency, led by Enrique Peña Nieto (2012-2018), improved bilateral ties.
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