Ashes of Fidel Castro make final, four-day trip across Cuba
A military jeep took the ashes of Fidel Castro on a four-day journey across Cuba on Wednesday, with islanders lining the roads to bid farewell to the late communist icon.
Seeing the ashes hurts your heart. I have cried for me and for my parents who were also revolutionaries
After two days of tributes to Castro in Cuba’s capital, the “caravan of freedom” departed Havana in the morning for a 950km trek, back on the route of his revolution’s victory tour of 1959.
The flag-covered cedar urn rested on a small olive-green trailer behind the jeep, flanked by white flowers and protected by a glass case.
Hundreds of thousands chanted “I am Fidel!” and “Viva Fidel!” as the convoy headed on a long trip through the countryside that will end with a burial in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba on Sunday.
Thousands of supporters lit the night with their phones as the remains of the man who ruled the island of almost half a century arrived in Cienfuegos, 230km southeast of Havana.
“Seeing the ashes hurts your heart. I have cried for me and for my parents who were also revolutionaries,” 70-year-old retired philosophy professor Orieta Cantero said in tears.
