By Norma Gamez Torres, Miami Herald:
One wanted to be a neurosurgeon and was a Real Madrid soccer fan. Another one loved to play basketball. A third one liked to pose for selfies to show off his tattoos.
One by one, the faces of young Cubans who likely died while combating a fire that started last week at an oil storage facility in the port of Matanzas have been popping up on social media this week.
They are among 14 people Cuban authorities said are missing but have yet to be officially identified. At least four – Leo Alejandro Doval Pérez de Prado, Michel Rodríguez Román, Adriano Rodríguez Gutiérrez and Fabián Naranjo Nuñez — were in the midst of their compulsory military service and had little experience as firefighters, according to accounts of families and friends on social media.
They were all very young and full of dreams, their relatives lamented. And now they are gone, prompting a flurry of questions about why authorities sent them as first responders to one of the most dangerous fires in Cuba in several decades.
“Who is going to take responsibility for bringing those inexperienced kids to such a dangerous scene?” asked Yanelys Naranjo González, a relative of Fabián Naranjo Nuñez, on Facebook. “Who ordered that they remain in the red zone where the flames could reach them if the scope of the fire grew, as it did?”
Read the full story here.