Cuba’s Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) announced on Tuesday that 13 Cuban military officials are missing after two explosions occurred at an ammunition depot in the eastern municipality of Melones, Holguín.
According to the communist regime, the 13 missing military officials include two majors, two second-class non-commissioned officers, and nine soldiers. The explosions took place in the early midnight hours of Tuesday in a building that the communist regime uses to house “war material.”
Initially, MINFAR stated on social media that the explosions were caused “due to a fire” and that, while the investigations were “ongoing,” the explosions did not “pose a danger” to the local community. Hours later, the Cuban state propaganda outlet Cubadebate reported that 361 people living near the explosion were “protected,” a term used as an euphemism for evacuated.
Cuban-focused outlets reported that Cubadebate and other regime-affiliated outlets originally claimed that the depot stored “old ammunition” and that it was possible that explosions could continue to be heard — but that information was abruptly deleted shortly thereafter, with archived snapshots of the now-deleted posts still accessible. Local residents filmed footage of the explosions’ smoke cloud and published it on social media.
The Castro regime, which has not publicly released much information on the explosions at the ammo depot, informed of the disappearance of the 13 officials some 12 hours after the explosions in a MINFAR statement listing the names and ranks of the missing men.
“Their families were duly informed, the party, the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces are paying all possible attention to this situation and are continuing investigations at the scene,” the statement read.
Cuba’s figurehead “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel publicly referred to the explosion on Wednesday, stating he “lamented” the fire at the ammunition depot.
“We stand in solidarity with and accompany the families of the 13 missing people. Full attention is being paid to what happened there and the causes are being investigated,” his message read.
Cibercuba reported on Wednesday that Cubans denounced on social media that the nine missing soldiers are allegedly young men who were in Cuba’s compulsory military service.
While the Castro regime has not publicly disclosed much information on the incident, the outlet Cubanet reported on Tuesday that local doctors have called on the community to create a blood donor group in order to offer help to those injured during the explosions, “given the magnitude of the event.” Another unidentified doctor reportedly insisted that the situation was “critical” and asked to locate volunteers and donors from each medical office to obtain blood.
Prior to this week’s explosion, another nearby ammunition depot in Holguín exploded in July 2020. At the time, a similar fire caused an explosion that spread projectiles that damaged nearby homes, which prompted the evacuation of over 1,200 local nearby residents.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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