“Where were the officials in charge of Antonio Rassi who did not see their depressive state?” Asks the mother of the deceased soldier.
Miami, United States. – Antonio Rassi Roque’s mother, the 18 -year -old recruit died last August 18 While fulfilling the active military service (SMA) in the El Calvario Military Unit (Havana), he accused the authorities of “lack of transparency” in the management of the case and demanded a board with the direct managers of his son, as stated in A letter sent to the journalist Mario J. Pentón.
In the text, Roque recounts that he presented himself in the unit where his son died on September 15 and 24, but was not attended; And he adds that, when he returned on the 30th, they received it because he threatened to not retire from the place.
According to his testimony, the officials who finally received it assured him that “everything is handled with total transparency.” However, Roque questions the absence of the head of the unit and the politician responsible for his son in the meeting, and asks: “Where were the officials in charge of Antonio Rassi who did not see their depressive state, lack of cleanliness and the dirty uniform, since it had one?”
The woman claims that she was never notified of her son’s situation: “Why didn’t it be called to inform what was happening with Antonio Rassi?” He assures that, according to “soldiers’ criteria”, his son “could not control the dream”, and raises doubts about what happened on death: “What happened from 8:55 in the morning, time when my son called me saying that he entered the guard, until 2:45 in the afternoon? They, as much as I, know that something happened.”
The mother rejects the official version: “The death of my son, who describes as ‘by their own decision’, was, simply, plainly, the reaction to an action caused in the unit.” Covering in the Constitutiondemands a formal meeting “with the head of the unit, the politician of the unit, the head of squad and the officer who was on August 18 at the head of Antonio Rassi’s guard.”
Initially, Rassi’s death was confirmed to Cubanet By the father of another recruit that accompanied him, who said the young man “shot up taking his life, as reported to the other soldiers.”
The same source explained that “the last week Antonio did not bathe.” “They required him but he was wrong.
Rassi’s case is part of a series of deaths of recruits reported this year. As the Cubalex Legal Information Center has documented, “with this death, they add up to at least 15 dead young people so far in 2025 during compliance with the SMO.” Reports include “accidents in the prevention body, medical negligence, shots [y] self -injuries ”.
Parents and activists argue that military service “has become an environment of risks and abuses” for adolescents and young people. The Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) remain silent about the death of recruits during the SMA, which has fueled the claims of families and organizations for wholesale transparency and for the end of the mandatory nature of the military service in Cuba.
