19/11/2025
Cuba?s Internationalist Legacy in Africa ? Part I: Doctors of Liberation
African blood flows freely through our veins. We shall defend Angola and Africa! ? Fidel Castro1 History remembers wars and generals, but too often forgets healers. Cuba?s internationalist mission in Africa began not with weapons, but with medicine. In the 1960s and 70s, as newly independent nations struggled to build health systems, Cuba sent doctors, nurses, and medical brigades across the continent. Their work was not charity?it was solidarity. Healing as Resistance In 1963, Cuba dispatched its first medical team to Algeria, only months after independence from France. That gesture set the tone for decades of commitment. Cuban doctors treated...
