Fidel Castro, Cuba’s former president and leader of the Communist revolution, has died at age 90. The revolutionary icon, one of the world’s best-known and most controversial leaders, survived countless US assassination attempts and premature obituaries, but in the end proved mortal after suffering a long battle with illness.
His brother Raul has announced. “The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening,”
The announcement was long expected, given the former president’s age and health problems, but when it came it was still a shock: the comandante – a figurehead for armed struggle across the developing world – was no more. It was news that friends and foes had long dreaded and yearned for respectively.
In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country’s Communist Party congress.
He acknowledged his advanced age but said Cuban communist concepts were still valid and the Cuban people “will be victorious”.
“I’ll soon be 90,” the former president said, adding that this was “something I’d never imagined. Soon I’ll be like all the others, “to all our turn must come,” Fidel Castro said.
