Cuba’s Raúl Castro reappears in public, dispelling rumors about his health

Cuba admin September 6, 2026 0 Comments

Cuba’s Raúl Castro reappears in public, dispelling rumors about his health

Raúl Castro, the nonagenarian Cuban general who remains the island’s ultimate authority, reappeared this Saturday in public, dispelling rumors spreading in Miami that he was critically ill.

Castro attended an event for the 65th anniversary of the creation of the Interior Ministry personal security directorate in charge of protection Cuba’s top leaders, according to a state television evening news report. The report introduced him as “leader at the head of the revolution.”

Castro looked frail and thinner In his traditional olive-green fatigues, but was seen walking, standing and talking. He was accompanied by his grandson, Col. Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro. The country’s formal president, Miguel Díaz-Canelm and Prime Minister Manuel Marrero also attended.

Castro, however, did not address the officers gathered. Instead, the interior minister, Gen. Lázaro Alberto Álvarez Casas read a message by Castro praising the personnel.

The unusually long report likely intended to show the world Castro is alive and well after rumors in social media that he was dead or critically ill. The Miami-based newspaper Diario las Americas had reported earlier this week that Castro had suffered a stroke and was on life support. And WPLG Local 10 reported that retired University of Miami professor Andy Gomez said that “reliable sources inside Cuba” told him Castro was hospitalized.

A Cuban improvisational poet who performed in Saturday’s interior ministrt event directly referred to the rumors, asking, “Now, what are they going to say? Look closely—here he is. Whether the empire likes it or not, he will remain alive.” At that point, the camera showed Castro’s grandson, visibly moved.

Castro turned 95 in June, just days after he was indicted in Miami for the deaths of four men during the 1996 shootdown over the Floida Straits of a plane belonging to the Cuban exile organization Brothers to the Rescue by Cuban military jets.

Castro left the presidency in 2018 and his title as first secretary of the Communist Party in 2021, but remains as the ultimate decision-maker on the island.