Four years have passed since the kidnapping of Cuban doctors in Kenya

MIAMI, United States. — Today marks the fourth anniversary of the kidnapping in Kenya of Cuban doctors Landy Rodríguez Hernández and Assel Herrera Correa, who are still being held and whereabouts unknown.

The doctors arrived in Kenya in June 2018 —as part of a group of 100 health professionals sent by the Cuban authorities to the African country within the framework of a bilateral agreement— and were kidnapped on April 12, 2019 in the town of Mandera, on the border with Somalia, by members of the Somali jihadist group Al Shabab.

In October 2020 they appeared reports about the supposed release of the doctors, a fact that ultimately did not take place.

Since then, little or nothing has been heard from Landy Rodríguez Hernández and Assel Herrera Correa, whose case seems doomed to oblivion.

This Wednesday, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla assured that the island’s regime continues to take steps “to achieve their safe return to Cuba.”

“Today marks the fourth anniversary of the kidnapping of the Cuban doctors Landy Rodríguez Hernández and Assel Herrera Correa. We continue to take steps uninterruptedly to achieve their safe return to Cuba, ”said the senior official on his Twitter account.

Rodríguez Parrilla’s message is framed in the same line that Havana has maintained in recent years when referring to the case of the doctors. There are no changes.

The last public reference on the subject of Cuban doctors occurred in December of last year during a visit to Havana by the Foreign Minister of Kenya, Alfred Mutua.

The representative of the African country met on that occasion with the ruler Miguel Díaz-Canel, with whom he would have discussed the situation of the doctors.

“I appreciated the commitment and support of the Kenyan government in its efforts to achieve the safe return to Cuba of our kidnapped doctors,” Díaz-Canel wrote on Twitter after meeting with Foreign Minister Mutua.