Late and without giving details about the age and exact function of the 14 men who died on August 6 in the explosion of one of the tanks set on fire in Matanzas, the Cuban authorities identified the victims this Thursday.
Given the silence of the Government since the incident occurred, on social networks and independent media, family and friends identified some of the deceased. But only today the official Cuban press has released a list with their names and photos, but they have not accompanied that information with their ages, at least four of them recruits from the Active Military Service.
The young people who passed the Military Service and that the official diary Granma He points them out as soldiers, they are: Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, Adriano Rodríguez and Fabián Naranjo Nuñez, from Matanzas and Michel Rodríguez Román, from Mayabeque.
Leo Alejandro Doval del Prado, 19, had been given up for dead by his aunt Yunia Doval and other relatives. “I don’t want you a hero, my boy, I prefer you a coward!” Doval wrote on Facebook. “I always admired your values and we know your family that you are not one of those who run, without imagining that today I would prefer that you had run away. I would feel the same pride if you arrived now saying that you suddenly became cowardly, rebellious, defiant, and got off the truck of firefighters, because ultimately, you are not one of them.
“I don’t want you a hero, my boy, I prefer you a coward!”
Days ago, official journalists mentioned Michel Rodríguez Román, 20, among the deceased, but later they deleted the information. A resident of the municipality of Santa Cruz del Norte, Mayabeque, he was doing military service in the Fire Department number 3 of the Juan Gualberto Gómez airport in Varadero.
Another of the deceased is Fabián Naranjo Nuñez, also initially identified in posts by his relatives on social networks. The young man, of unknown age, was doing military service in the same fire department. “We don’t know anything about this boy. Please, if anyone sees him in any of the hospitals, let them know,” Yanelys Naranjo González wrote on Facebook.
The Cuban authorities concluded this Wednesday that it is “impossible to absolutely identify” the identity of the skeletal remains found in the fire area. Jorge González Pérez, president of the Cuban Society of Legal Medicine, pointed out that –despite the fact that a DNA test cannot be carried out due to the degree of burning– it is concluded that the fragments correspond to the 14 disappeared persons.
Also in this group are Pablo Ángel López Martell, Rolando Oviedo Sosa, Osley Marrante Guerra, Luis Ángel Álvarez Leyva, Andy Michel Ramos, Osmany Blasco Sosa, Raciel Martínez Navarro, Diosdel Nazco, Areskys Quintero and Luis Raúl Aguilar Zamora.
González Pérez said that it is also not possible to know whether each of the 14 groups of bone remains belong to each of the 14 disappeared separately.
In addition to these victims, two deaths had already been reported, firefighters Juan Carlos Santana Garrido, 60, and the young Elier Correa, 24.
The last part of Ministry of Public Health Regarding the incident, it records, in addition to the deceased, 130 injured people, of whom 18 remain hospitalized and 112 patients were discharged.
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