Activists and independent journalists denounce State Security operations to prevent them from leaving their homes.
14ymedio, Havana, 15 January 2026 — The remains of the 32 Cuban soldiers killed in the US attack on Venezuela to capture Maduro landed shortly after 7 a.m. on a Cubana de Aviación ATR 42-500 aircraft, where six military vehicles were waiting to transport them to the headquarters of the Ministry of the Armed Forces.
The welcoming ceremony was very brief, but surrounded by all the pomp and circumstance expected for such grand occasions. Soldiers dressed in full dress uniform carried down, one each, the urns containing the ashes of the deceased, all of them metal and covered with a Cuban flag.
At the foot of the plane, former president and army general Raúl Castro and current president Miguel Díaz-Canel stood in formation alongside the rest of the government and military and Communist Party authorities.
With a military funeral march playing in the background, Interior Minister Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas gave an opening speech praising the fallen and rejecting the words of the US – which he referred to as “the enemy” – about “precision operations”. “We talk about faces,” he said, in the middle of a harangue that ended with shouts of “glory” and the familiar “Until victory, always.”
The 32 urns were placed in jeeps and driven to the centre of the capital along Rancho Boyeros Avenue. Once in the capital, numerous roads were closed, including some major ones such as 23rd Street towards the centre of El Vedado and Ayestarán Avenue in the municipality of Cerro. As the convoy passed, shouts of “glory,” “down with Trump,” “homeland or death,” and other revolutionary slogans could be heard. Numerous demonstrators carried the Venezuelan flag and wore red sweaters. Police horses, patrol cars, and officers from the Ministry of the Interior could be seen throughout the city.
The day of tribute also dawned with State Security operations. Thus, the editorial office of this newspaper, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, from where Reinaldo Escobar was not allowed to leave. Nearby, there is at least one plainclothes officer and a police patrol. Activist Yamilka Lafita, known on social media as Lara Crofs, has been reporting harassment since Wednesday.
“Since yesterday, they have cut off my internet access. I haven’t had it since 4:30 pm and then from two in the morning until now, when I was able to connect through an alternative route,” Lafita explains in a Facebook post published today. “Just 30 minutes ago, I heard loud shouting from outside my house, and it was a State Security officer yelling at me that I couldn’t leave the house. They left a patrol car with two police officers on the corner so that if I dared to leave, they could arrest me.”
Independent journalist Camila Acosta reports the same thing. “He looks like a vagrant, but he’s the security guard on duty on the corner of my house to prevent us from going out on the street,” she says in a post on her social media accompanied by a picture of the plainclothes officer.
Meanwhile, La Hora de Cuba reports that its director, Henry Constantín, is missing. According to the independent media outlet, his last communication with his team was yesterday at around 6:50 p.m. “Henry was at his home in Havana and yesterday afternoon he alerted his colleagues about his poor connection,” they explain in a post. “This morning, the gate and door to his flat were found open, there was no one inside, and his mobile phone is turned off or out of range. Outside his building, a State Security agent is keeping watch.”
All the pro-government front pages are focused on the same topic this Thursday, the tribute to the “fallen”, which, however, has been dampened very early on. Heavy rain fell at midday in Havana on the crowd brought in by state agencies. To this end, the authorities have mobilised a number of transport vehicles that are not normally available on a daily basis due to a lack of fuel.
On Wednesday night, a group of soldiers from the island who were wounded during the US operation on 3 January to capture Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, landed at José Martí Airport in the capital on a Cubana de Aviación Ilyushin Il-96-300 that has been flying back and forth from Caracas since last week, probably to bring doctors on a mission to Venezuela.
The number of members in the group, as well as their names and state of health, are unknown at this time. In the images broadcast by Canal Caribe, at least two could be seen in wheelchairs – one of them with a leg in a cast – but apparently in good physical condition. Among those who descended the aircraft steps on their own, some were limping.
The curious thing is that the aircraft did not arrive directly from Caracas. According to the flight tracking website Flightradar24, the IL-96-300 departed from Havana in the morning heading east of the island, although the destination airport did not appear on satellite tracking, which is common with this aircraft, used by the regime for special operations. It was from Santiago de Cuba or another nearby area that it departed again to arrive in the capital with the wounded.
Translated by GH
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