Cuba, Kenya continue negotiations for kidnapped doctors' return

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25 February 2021

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Havana, Feb 25 (Prensa Latina) Cuba's Minister of Public Health Jose Angel Portal referred to the continuity of the negotiations for the return to his country of the two doctors kidnapped in Kenya since 2019, local press reported today.

According to Granma newspaper, the minister had recently talked by telephone with his Kenyan counterpart, Mutahi Kagwe, and they discussed the actions in pursuit of the Cuban doctors' return.

They also focused on the development of medical collaboration between the two countries and its projections.

Kagwe ratified the interest in Cuban cooperation and thanked the work of Cuban specialists in the Caribbean nation, as well as the training of their students in this country.

Doctors Assel Herrera, a specialist in General Comprehensive Medicine from Las Tunas province, in the eastern part of the country, and Landy Rodriguez, a surgeon from Villa Clara (center), were part of the Cuban medical mission in Kenya.

According to press reports, they were ambushed and kidnapped while serving on April 12, 2019, by members of the Al Shabab group, and taken to Somalia, a neighboring country of Kenya.

Since that moment, the Government of Cuba is in permanent communication at the highest level with authorities of those two nations for the return of both, and keeps the specialists' families informed.

President Miguel Diaz-Canel spoke with the presidents of Kenya and Somalia, and had more than one meeting with the families of Assel Herrera and Landy Rodriguez.