Cuban Doctors Recall Guatemala Arrival
At a ceremony in front of the bust of Jose Marti in Guatemala City, Cuban physicians recalled their arrival in the internationalist Henry Reeve Brigade a year ago today.

Over 600 specialists in disasters and serious epidemics, carrying medicine-laden backpacks arrived in this capital in October 2005 to succour the victims of Tropical Storm Stan.

During their stay in this country the Cuban doctors attended over two million inhabitants from 69 municipalities and saved 1,394 lives.

Dr. Yoel Tuya highlighted the internationalist vocation of the Revolution and recalled that hundreds of members of the brigade also helped in Pakistan and Indonesia in natural disasters there.

The contingent was created in September 2005 after Hurricane Katrina hit the United States and Cuban President Fidel Castro proposed naming the brigade “Henry Reeve” for a US citizen who died fighting in Cuba in 1876.

In his speech, the Cuban Ambassador to Guatemala Omar Morales highlighted the internationalist spirit of Commander Ernesto Che Guevara, of the Five Cuban patriots unjustly imprisoned in the US, and the physicians who today extend solidarity support all over the world.