Cuba has sent about 60 doctors to Angola to reinforce the African nation’s crumbling health system and strengthen ties between the two Cold War allies, Angola’s state-run news agency said on Monday.
The surgeons, paediatricians and other specialists who make up the Cuban group began arriving in Luanda on Saturday and were expected to begin work at public hospitals in and around the Angolan capital this week, Angop reported.
They will remain in the Southern African nation under the terms of a cooperation agreement signed between the two countries, Vita Vemba, the director of health for Luanda Province, told Angop.
Although it is sub-Saharan Africa’s second largest oil producer and also rich in diamonds, Angola is struggling to finance the reconstruction of hospitals and other infrastructure devastated during a 27-year civil war that ended in 2002.
It has one of Africa’s worst infant mortality rates, with about one-quarter of children dying before the age of 5.
Communist Cuba has strong ties with Angola, dating back to the 1960s when Fidel Castro’s government began openly supporting Marxist guerrillas who were fighting Portuguese colonial rule.
Tens of thousands of Cuban soldiers were stationed in Angola after the African nation won independence in 1975, helping the Soviet-allied government in its civil war with rebels supported by the United States and South Africa.
A high-ranking Angolan military delegation is currently in Havana to discuss closer cooperation between the two countries. — Reuters