Cuban President: We are negotiating for the release of two cuban doctors abducted in Kenya four years ago

NAIROBI—The Cuban Government is negotiating for the release of two cuban doctors abducted by suspected Al-Shabab militants in Kenya three years ago.

The Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel made the comments when he participated in a Twitter discussion on the country’s security and other topics.

“We persevere in our battle for the safe return to Cuba of Doctors Assel Herrera Correa and Landy Rodriguez Hernandez,” the President noted according to the news agency Prensa Latina.

He continued: “Four years after their kidnapping, we continue our tireless efforts to have them among us, together with their families and their people.”

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel (Courtesy)

The two doctors—Landy Rodriguez and Herera Correa—were kidnapped in a daring daylight road ambush in Mandera town where the gunmen shot and killed one of the police officers guarding the medics. The two doctors were being escorted to work when two salon cars blocked their way in the ambush in April, 2019. The two were part of more than 100 Cuban medical specialists brought to Kenya a year earlier to improve the health service.

In mid 2022, the Daily Mail reported that “the two medics were released.” However, the Cuban Foreign Affairs ministry quickly denied the claim.

Issack Ibrein Robow, a driver who attached to two Cuban doctors who were kidnapped by Al Shabaab militants in 2019 in Mandera County.

On February last year, Issack Ibrein Robow, a driver who attached to two Cuban doctors, has been found guilty of committing a terrorist act.

Rowbow was charged that on April 12, 2019, at around 9am in Mandera town, jointly with others not before the court, he facilitated the kidnapping and hostage-taking of Dr. Assel Herrera  Correa and Dr. Landy Rodriguez Hernandez. The accused was at the time driving the two doctors who had been seconded to the Mandera County Referral Hospital.

A police officer, Constable Mutundo Kitambo, who had been deployed on escort duties was killed during the incident.

The accused, who was a government employee attached to Mandera County, was charged with five offences; commission of a terrorist act, kidnapping and hostage, obtaining registration by false pretence and being unlawfully in Kenya respectively.

He was found guilty of all other counts apart from the fifth charge of being unlawfully in Kenya.