Havana/The Ministry of the Armed Forces reported this Friday that on January 20 a posthumous tribute will be held to the 13 soldiers who died after several explosions in a weapons warehouse in Melones, Holguín. The ceremony will take place at 9:00 am in the Plaza Calixto García of the provincial capital, according to an official note.
Last Wednesday, the Army declared dead the soldiers missing in the incident, which occurred on January 7, officially due to “an electrical failure caused by a short circuit inside the installation,” according to the first investigations. Miguel Díaz-Canel, who ignored the case and delegated its management to local leaders, stated that the soldiers “died heroically” and that the Government would accompany their families in the “pain of the loss.”
As reported last Wednesday, the investigation commission created by the organization concluded that “the site of the accident is inaccessible and consequently there is no possibility of life there.” Hours before the official announcement from the authorities, 14ymedio reported that a relative of the soldiers – who requested anonymity because they have been prohibited from speaking to the media or even publish on networks–, reported that they were used drones to “measure the temperature from the air” and determine if ground zero, where the explosions occurred, could be accessed.
“They never started the search (for the bodies), much less the investigations at the site of the explosion.”
The report explained that it had not been possible to reach the place where the deceased were located due to “the extreme complexity that exists on the ground as a result of the explosions, the effects of the accumulated gases and the severe damage caused.” He also stressed that in the area of the explosion, a work with war material, there is “real danger of collapses due to the structural damage to the work” that stored war material belonging to the Holguín Military Region, in the Eastern Army.
Julio César Guerrero Batista, father of recruit José Carlos Guerrero García, 19, denounced on social networks that the authorities “never began the search (for the bodies) and much less the investigations at the site of the explosion.”
In his message, he explained that in the report that an Armed Forces officer gave him every day at his home, they informed him that “the search and investigation could not begin because ammunition continued to be detonated at the site of the explosion and it could not be placed.” “rescuers, investigators and experts are at risk.” He added that, to date, “the victims’ families have not been given a detailed explanation of what happened.”
To date, “the victims’ families have not been given a detailed explanation of what happened.”
The damage covered a large portion of the land. A satellite image shared by journalist Mario Pentón, before and after the accident at the Holguín military base, shows the transformation of the area, in which the green of the vegetation became a large yellowish stain.
In addition to José Carlos Guerrero, other recruits of the mandatory military service who died for the explosions were Leinier Jorge Sánchez (only 18 years old, and son of the secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of People’s Power of Rafael Freyre, Alexis Driggs Gómez, Gretel María Franco), Liander José García Oliva, Brian Lázaro Rojas Long, Yunior Hernández Rojas, Rayme Rojas Rojas, José Carlos Guerrero García, Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer, Carlos Alejandro Acosta Silva and Héctor Adrián Batista Zayas, in addition to four officers: Carlos Carreño, Orlebanis Tamé Torres, Yoennis Pérez Durán and Leonar Palma Matos.
