2023-09-25 05:16:02
HAVANA (AP) — The Cuban embassy in Washington suffered an attack with fire bombs on Sunday night, reported the island’s foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez.
No injuries were reported to the personnel working at the headquarters, Rodríguez clarified on his official account on the social network X, previously called Twitter.
Apparently the attack occurred hours after the president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, returned to the island after a visit to New York, where he participated in the United Nations General Assembly and met with groups of Cuban residents and sympathizers.
The official Cubadebate portal reported that the president was received on Sunday by leader Raúl Castro at the Havana airport.
“Today night, 9/24, the Cuban Embassy in the United States was the target of a terrorist attack by an individual who threw 2 Molotov cocktails,” said the chancellor. “The details are being worked out. “It is the second violent attack against the diplomatic headquarters in Washington.”
Rodríguez alluded to an attack against the representation that occurred in 2020, in which a man armed with a rifle attacked the building. The subject of that incident—an American of Cuban descent—was identified and detained.
“Anti-Cuban groups resort to terrorism because they feel impunity, something that Cuba has repeatedly warned US authorities about,” the foreign minister added on the social network.
It is unknown if anyone was arrested on this occasion. No further details were given about possible damage to the property.
Cuba and the United States reopened their diplomatic headquarters in 2015, after at the end of 2014 the then president Barack Obama and his colleague Raúl Castro announced a historic relaunch of relations, which had been interrupted for more than five decades.
Many Cuban exiles and emigrants live in the United States, and ties deteriorated again—without the diplomatic headquarters being closed this time—during the government of now former President Donald Trump. The current president, Joe Biden, did not reverse many of the measures to tighten sanctions taken by his predecessor, such as the incorporation of Cuba to the list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
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