Rayme Rojas Rojas only had six months left to finish his Military Service and return home. “He was counting the days because the two years he had to serve were almost up,” he told CubaNet a cousin of the young soldier on condition of anonymity.
Rayme, 20, is one of the Active Military Service (SMA) recruits who were reported missing after the explosions that occurred this Tuesday in a facility where war material is stored in the town of Melones, in the Rafael Freyre municipality, Holguín.
“They tell us that the search work continues and we maintain faith in a miracle, but with certainty we only know that there are many dead due to the magnitude of the explosions, and that apparently they were inside the premises,” adds the source.
The Ministry of the Armed Forces (MINFAR) of Cuba confirmed this Tuesday that 13 people were missing as a result of the incident: two of them hold the rank of major and two more are second non-commissioned officers; the rest (nine) were identified as “soldiers.”
1. Major Leonar Palma Matos.
2. Major Carlos Carreño del Rio.
3. Second Petty Officer Orlebanis Tamé Torres.
4.Second Non-Commissioned Officer Yoennis Pérez Durán.
5. Soldier Leinier Jorge Sánchez Franco.
6. Soldier Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer.
7. Soldier Liander José García Oliva.— Minfar_Cuba (@MinfarC) January 8, 2025
“We are very sad and desperate. They tell us that we have to wait for them to call us when they have new information. “This is very hard,” he told CubaNet a relative of José Carlos Guerrero García – another of the disappeared – who asked not to be identified by name. Born in Banes, Guerrero is barely 19 years old.
In August 2022, a large fire at the Matanzas Supertanker Base ended the lives of 17 firefighters. The flames spread to several warehouses and lasted for seven days.
Among the fatalities, four young people died – between 19 and 21 years old – who were not professional firefighters, but rather were performing Active Military Service and barely had the experience to act in such a scenario. This new accident in Holguín, with nine young people missing, could increase the number of fatalities among recruits.
The Cuban Government does not publish information on the subject, nor does it even mention it. Given this information gap, CubaNet has built its own database that includes 36 cases of young people who left their homes for military units and never returned to their families.
Military Service is unavoidable
According to the National Defense LawMilitary Service is mandatory for Cuban men between 17 and 28 years old for a period of 24 months. In the case of those who achieved university places, this period is reduced by half.
Despite An official from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) of Cuba assured the UN that this recruitment was “voluntary”the obligatory nature of Cuban Military Service has never been questioned. There is no alternative but to obey and join.
The requirement was protected in the 2019 Constitution, which prohibited the use of conscientious objection to evade compliance. Young people who refuse to join, claiming, for example, that taking up arms is not compatible with their religion, are prosecuted.
He Military Penal Code It is forceful and establishes penalties of up to five years in prison for those who evade the SMA.
Every year, all Cubans of recruitment age are forced to pause their lives and join spaces controlled mostly by the Army, where they are subjected to despotic structures and very strict living conditions. Young people leave their homes to undergo double pressure. On the one hand, they are under the orders of soldiers who, As has been reported in many cases, they humiliate and mistreat them and, on the other hand, they have to live with kids who tend to abuse others.
Teenagers are recruited in Cuba
After the Matanzas incident, the Cuban regime deployed an army of cyber combatants to spread the narrative that in most countries Military Service is mandatory; and therefore Cuba would not be doing anything reprehensible.
This is false.
Currently, it is not the majority, but less than a third of the total number of countries, that maintain compulsory military service each year, as confirmed CubaNet when consulting a database of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States.
The CIA has recorded that some 66 countries maintain military service regulated in legislation as mandatory. However, of these there are 14 that apply it exceptionally or selectively, and only affect a minimal part of their male population on a random basis. For example, in the case of Brazil, although it is not voluntary, only between 5 and 10% of its young people are recruited each year. Something similar happens in Guatemala and Equatorial Guinea. While in the Netherlands, Indonesia, Somalia and El Salvador it has not been applied for years, although it is still regulated by law.
Cuba also stands out among the countries with the longest duration. While 12 months of service are regularly established worldwide, Cuba subjects those who will not enter university to two years, a period that is only exceeded by Chad and Egypt (three years), Israel (32 months) and, of course, Korea. northern.
The SMA in Cuba incorporates boys from the age of 17 (minors according to international standards), which is lower than the average recruitment age in the world (18 years).
As verified in the CIA database, only Cuba and North Korea forcefully recruit minors each year.
