- More details are known about the victims of the Melones explosion in Holguín
- The alert has been extended to Sancti Spíritus, where helicopters fly over the weapon silos on the Zaza road
14ymedio, Miguel García, Holguín, 9 January 2024 — “We are doing what we can.” The response of the authorities is invariable when approaching the relatives of the 13 soldiers who disappeared after the explosions that occurred on Tuesday at the Melones base, in the municipality of Rafael Freyre, in Holguín. As explained to 14ymedio by the aunt of one of the young recruits affected, who asks for anonymity, the local government officials themselves visit the homes but are not able to give the families concrete information.
They hope, says this same source, that the soldiers – nine recruits of the Active Military Service (SMA) and four officers – “have managed to enter a security tunnel near the site of the explosion, to which they had access.” The woman continues: “They say that when they manage to lower the temperature of the place they will look there specifically, because it’s the only hope of finding them alive.”
One of them, Leinier Jorge Sánchez, only 18 years old, is the son of Gretel María Franco, secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of Popular Power of Rafael Freyre, Alexis Driggs Gómez, as confirmed to this newspaper by several local residents.
The shock wave of the explosion that happened “impacted them all, throwing them to the floor”
Driggs Gómez himself was injured in one of the explosions, as the State newspaper Granma published this Thursday: “He carries on his forehead, between his eyes, the imprint of the impact of a glass fragment caused by the first large explosion that occurred in the Military Unit.” The text details that the municipal president, along with several military authorities, “had reached the vicinity of a burned silo, where the military chief explained to them the magnitude of the danger that threatened the residents in the vicinity and the need for a quick evacuation.”
The shock wave of the explosion that occurred, the article continues, “hit them all, throwing them to the floor in the middle of a cloud of particles, dirt and dust flying in all directions.”
After that first explosion, “around two in the morning,” Yamilé Suárez Serrano, one of the evacuees from the hamlet of Sao Nuevo, whose home served as an “address post” in the first hours, told Granma that “the warning was set in motion,” and “later the means of transport arrived.” The first evacuated were the elderly, children and pregnant women, said the same source, who is also the mother of a People’s Power delegate in the area.
The Communist Party newspaper does not specify how many explosions there were in total, but in the videos spread on social networks by eyewitnesses can be seen at least two that occurred during the day.
On Wednesday afternoon, says the official newspaper, “a press group gained the closest possible access to the damage.” “Columns of smoke still crowned several elevations,” although “no explosions have been reported since early Wednesday morning.”
More than 490 residents in the rural constituency of Sao Redondo, according to official information, were transferred to “safe places,” as were residents of Sao Nuevo, El Cerro and the town of Melones itself. Granma sources highlighted “the creation of rural brigades” that guarded “homes with the belongings of those transferred to evacuation centers and protected the homes of family and friends, in the municipal capital and in other places.”
General Ramón Pardo Guerra, 88, described the event as a “disaster of technological origin”
The report also indicates that “surveillance is constant with the use of various means, including unmanned aerial vehicles (drones).” According to sources from 14ymedio, the alert went throughout the country. In Sancti Spíritus, this Thursday “helicopters are flying over the city in the northern part, specifically over the weapon silos on the Zaza road,” says a former SMA recruit in that area. “In addition, you can see the coming and going of cars with soldiers.”
In the official press, the authorities claim that they showed “courage and responsibility” and that in the “area of greatest danger from the first moment” the “main heads of the Eastern Army and the Military Region of Holguín have been there, as well as Joel Queipo Ruiz, member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and first secretary of the organization in Holguín territory, also Manuel Hernández Aguilera, governor of Holguín, and members of the Defense Council of the Municipality and other local authorities.”
The head of the National Civil Defense General Staff, General Ramón Pardo Guerra, 88, described the event as a “disaster of technological origin,” without specifying why he used this term, although he added that the causes were still being investigated.
However, the opinion of family members, who vent on social networks, is very different. Jesús Antonio, uncle of Liander José García Oliva who is missing, posted,”I feel that the right thing is not being done; I feel that those children are still alive but nothing is being done to save them. They are leaving them to God’s fate, because we know that they have not tried to look for them. And what hurts the most is that they had the courage to risk them all, but now none of them want to risk it for those children, whom they forced to do the dirty work that didn’t correspond to their rank.”
Jesús Antonio says that they are still waiting for the return home of the recruits, and adds: “All parents and close or distant relatives should come together and make it come true. Tell them to stop lying and do what they have to do, which is to give their lives to try to save those whom they forced to be there.”
More commentators joined his wish, such as Yeikel del Valle, who says that his ex-brother-in-law and uncle of his daughter is also among the victims, and Camila Ching, who says: “Very true, I have the brother of a dear friend on that list and there are no answers. It is not fair to leave them to the fate of what may happen.”
Leandro Pérez Alberteriz says he is “available in case they need volunteers. Those words are very well written. My first cousin is also among the missing, and they aren’t doing anything to get them out.”
From testimonies of relatives and comments on Facebook, it is possible to reconstruct scraps of the biographies of the disappeared.
Among the nine SMA recruits are a Japanese cartoon enthusiast and a future chef, and some who were only a few months away from demobilizing. Most are residents of the vicinity of the Melones base or other Holguin municipalities.
Leinier Jorge Sánchez, only 18 years old, is the son of Gretel María Franco, secretary of the president of the Municipal Assembly of Popular Power of Rafael Freyre
Along with the aforementioned Leinier Jorge Sánchez and Liander José García Oliva, the list of recruits consists of Brian Lázaro Rojas Long (from the community of Esterito, in the municipality of Banes), Yunior Hernández Rojas (originally from Holguín), Rayme Rojas Rojas (born in 2004), José Carlos Guerrero García (only 19 years old), Frank Antonio Hidalgo Almaguer (neighbor of the municipality of San Andrés), Carlos Alejandro Acosta Silva and Héctor Adrián Batista Zayas (from Las Tunas).
Among the officers is Major Carlos Carreño (from Santiago de Cuba, married and with a child), the second non-commissioned officer Orlebanis Tamé Torres, with a military degree also obtained by Yoennis Pérez Durán, a graduate of electrical engineering, as well as Major Leonar Palma Matos (also the father of a son).
Their identities were made public by the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces almost 12 hours after the event occurred, and after long hours of rumors and uncertainty.
These types of accidents are not rare in military installations such as Melones. In the first hours of the event, news was spread by mistake – even by the official press – that the damaged warehouse was the same one that in 2020 also suffered two morning explosions in Gibara, about 50 kilometers from Rafael Freyre.
In addition, in June 2017 there was a similar event, this time in Santiago de Cuba, when several explosions occurred in the municipality of Songo-La Maya, near the Ti Arriba military unit .
Then, half a thousand neighbors were evacuated for five days, without anyone giving them an explanation about the incident, which did not cause more damage than the consequences, reported by the residents, of leaving their animals abandoned for several days.
Last 2024, three workers died in several explosions at the Ernesto Che Guevara Industrial Military Company (EMI), located in La Campana, in Manicaragua, Villa Clara. In these cases, accidents occurred when employees handled potentially dangerous explosives.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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