Ashes of Fidel Castro arrive in Santiago de Cuba
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E-mail CNTV, December 4, 2016
The ashes of Fidel Castro have arrived in the city of Santiago de Cuba. That's where the former Cuban leader will be interred on Sunday.
Fidel Castro's coffin started the final leg of his 900- kilometer funeral procession early Saturday morning.
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People greet the caravan carrying the ashes of Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro upon its arrival in Santiago de Cuba, southeastern Cuba, on Dec. 3, 2016. [Xinhua] |
Starting of Wednesday morning when they left Havana, his remains have travelled the length of Cuba, drawing huge crowds all along the way.
Even in remote rural areas, farmers and their families lined the roads, wanting to be part of this historic event. His final destination, Cuba's second city Santiago.
Among them many elderly Cubans who remember life before the revolution and how it changed for them under Fidel.
"I was a young girl at the triumph of the revolution and everything we had at that time completely changed in this country because Fidel gave the humble, the opportunity to be someone," said Marta Verdecia, retired teacher.
Juan Zapata was 14 years -old when he left home for the Sierra Maestra mountains to join Fidel Castro's guerrilla army.
"As you know Fidel has never been defeated. There were so many attempts to assassinate him, and they all failed. He has to be the most undefeated man in the world," he said.
Finally, after four-and-a-half days on the road, the funeral cortege made its way through the city where Fidel Castro went to school and later turned to armed struggle.
Now that Fidel Castro's remains have arrived in Santiago his funeral procession is making a tour of all the historic spots connected to him, such as here at the former Moncada barracks.
His assault on the Moncada barracks in 1953 were the first shots fired in what became the Cuban Revolution.
There was also a stop in the old town square where Castro gave his first victory speech following the triumph of the revolution in January 1959. Several of his children were there to join the event and take in the atmosphere. Fidel Castro junior recording his own memories of the day.
His coffin will spend the night in Revolution Square beneath a monument to Cuba's independence wars against Spain. A mass rally will take place there tonight before Fidel Castro is finally laid to rest early Sunday morning.
