Cuba is being deprived of a vital source of foreign revenue as its doctors are leaving Venezuela and the US increases the pressure on the communist island following its capture of Nicolás Maduro.
In the weeks following Maduro’s daring night-time abduction, scores of Cuban doctors — a pillar of the country’s populist health programmes and a symbol of the close ties between the socialist allies — have quietly left their posts and returned to Havana.
“They’re no longer here, only Venezuelan staff remain,” said a security guard at one health centre in Caracas which had largely been staffed by Cuban doctors. “After January 3, they started taking them away,” he added, whispering to discuss a deeply sensitive topic for the governments in Caracas and Havana.