The president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, affirmed this Tuesday that he continues “untiringly” managing the return of the two kidnapped doctors for three years in Kenya, with unknown whereabouts so far.
“Today marks three years since the kidnapping of our doctors Assel and Landy. We continue tirelessly to make efforts for their safe return to the Homeland together with their families,” the president wrote on Twitter.
Surgeon Landy Rodríguez and general medicine specialist Assel Herrera were captured in the Kenyan city of Mandera (northeast), on the border with Somalia, and transferred to that country by alleged members of the Somali jihadist group Al Shabab, the agency recalls. Eph.
On April 12, 2019, they were traveling, as usual, in a convoy to the Mandera hospital, protected by armed escorts, when they were intercepted after a shootout during which one of the police officers responsible for their security died.
Herrera and Rodríguez are part of a contingent of a hundred Cuban professionals who arrived in Kenya in 2018 as part of a bilateral agreement to improve access to specialized health services in that African country.
The governments of Cuba, Kenya and Somalia say that since the doctors were captured they have been making joint efforts to achieve their release.
Today marks three years since the kidnapping of our doctors Assel and Landy. We tirelessly continue to make arrangements for their safe return to the Homeland together with their families. pic.twitter.com/O3jhZpndSH
– Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) April 12, 2022
Every time there is contact in this regard with these countries, the Cuban authorities tend to divulge it, albeit briefly and without specific details about the steps taken.
In late March, a Kenyan court sentenced the driver of the vehicle in which the two doctors were traveling to life in prison. The condemned man had been hired by the Mandera County Government to transfer them to the hospital.
Efe/OnCuba.
