Mexico City, Mexico.- Humberto Rodríguez, a young Cuban who was serving in the Military Service, died this Sunday, May 11, as a result of a gunshot wound.
The young man, resident in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba province, complied with the military recruitment in a unit known as Combustible, detailed in social networks Jessy Borrel.
CubaNet contacted a neighbor of the victim’s family and on condition of anonymity assured this medium that the young man was accidentally shot by another recruit when they were on duty. “They put weapons in the hands of boys who don’t know how to use them and these misfortunes happen,” said the source, who added that the young man’s family is very affected. “Humberto was the only son of his mother,” she said.
deaths in service
just a few weeks ago, Maikol Arcia Hernandez, a native of Güines, Mayabeque, committed suicide on May 26 while doing his Mandatory Military Service. The young man had expressed his desire to harm himself but the directors of the unit downplayed it and assured that it was “spoiled manners”
According to the National Defense Law, in Decree-Law 224, male citizens between the ages of seventeen and twenty-eight must complete Active Military Service for a period of two years. In the case of those who reached university places, this period is reduced by half, but it is still forced. Military service has been compulsory in Cuba since June 1963, as a response, according to the government, to a possible US invasion that has never occurred.
Instead, what does happen every year is that thousands of young people, some minors, leave their homes for military or work units that operate despotic and imposing command structures. In these spaces, the boys are not only exposed to degrading treatment that can affect them irreversibly, but also to fatal outcomes.
Despite the fact that the Cuban government does not expose statistics in this regard and silences the issue in the media, Humberto and the other victims are not isolated cases. In recent years, the independent press has released various records of deaths in military service.
In the majority of documented cases, the official cause of death was self-inflicted injuries.
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