Raúl Castro reappears in public, dispelling health rumors
Raúl Castro made a public appearance at an Interior Ministry event on Saturday, dispelling recent social media claims that he was critically ill or hospitalized. His grandson, Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, is behind him to the right.
Cuban government photo
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.
Nora Gámez Torres is the Cuba/U.S.-Latin American policy reporter for el Nuevo Herald and the Miami Herald. She studied journalism and media and communications in Havana and London. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from City, University of London. Her work has won awards by the Florida Society of News Editors and the Society for Professional Journalists. For her “fair, accurate and groundbreaking journalism,” she was awarded the Maria Moors Cabot Prize in 2025 — the most prestigious award for coverage of the Americas.//Nora Gámez Torres estudió periodismo y comunicación en La Habana y Londres. Tiene un doctorado en sociología y desde el 2014 cubre temas cubanos para el Nuevo Herald y el Miami Herald. También reporta sobre la política de Estados Unidos hacia América Latina. Su trabajo ha sido reconocido con premios de Florida Society of News Editors y Society for Profesional Journalists. Por su “periodismo justo, certero e innovador”, fue galardonada con el Premio Maria Moors Cabot en 2025 —el premio más prestigioso a la cobertura de las Américas.