# Cuba declares mourning after 32 citizens are reported killed in US raid on Venezuela
On 2026-01-04, Cuba announced that 32 of its citizens were killed during the United States military operation in Caracas that targeted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife. Havana said it would observe two days of mourning on January 5 and 6 and later announce funeral arrangements for the dead.
The supplied Al Jazeera report says the Cuban state-run Prensa Latina agency described the victims as fighters who died while carrying out missions on behalf of the Cuban military at the request of the Venezuelan government. It said they fell either in direct combat against the attackers or in the bombing of facilities after offering fierce resistance. That framing matters because it places the deaths inside a broader alliance between Havana and Caracas rather than treating them as incidental casualties.
The report also describes the operation as one of the most controversial U.S. interventions in Latin America in decades. Maduro and his wife were reportedly flown to New York to face prosecution on drug-related charges, while Venezuelan defense minister Vladimir Padrino accused the United States of killing soldiers, civilians and a large part of Maduro's security detail in cold blood. The report does not provide an independently verified Venezuelan casualty count, but it notes that the New York Times cited an official saying at least 40 people had been killed.
The U.S. response, as quoted by Al Jazeera, emphasized the scale of death on the other side while denying any U.S. losses. President Donald Trump told reporters on Air Force One that there was a lot of death on the other side and that many Cubans had been killed, with no death on our side. He also linked the operation to pressure on Venezuela, to oil access and to broader U.S. concerns about migration and criminal charges against Maduro.
The political reaction across the region was immediate. Left-leaning governments in Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Mexico denounced the abduction of Maduro. Governments in countries such as Argentina and Ecuador were more welcoming. The United Nations Security Council was scheduled to meet on Monday to discuss the attack, and both Russia and China criticized Washington. Beijing called on the United States to stop toppling the government of Venezuela and Moscow described the move as an act of armed aggression.
For Cuba, the key point was not only the death toll but the symbolic weight of the announcement. The statement of mourning signals that Havana is treating the event as a national loss with military and political meaning, not just an external crisis. The report also shows that Cuba is using the episode to reinforce its longstanding alignment with Venezuela, even as the U.S. says the operation was about law enforcement and not war.
The episode leaves several claims contested and several questions unanswered, especially around the exact sequence of events and the full casualty count. What is clear from the evidence packet is that the raid has already become a regional diplomatic crisis. Cuba has announced mourning, Venezuela has accused Washington of aggression, and the United States is presenting the operation as a justified detention mission even as the human toll draws condemnation far beyond Caracas.
