Mirta Díaz-Balart, Fidel Castro's first wife, dies in Madrid at the age of 95.

Mirta Díaz-Balart was the only woman Fidel Castro married in a church. She was the mother of Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart "Fidelito," who died by suicide in 2018.

Mirta Díaz Balart con su hijo Fidel Castro y su nieto Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov © Dr.C. Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov / Twitter
Mirta Díaz Balart with her son Fidel Castro and her grandson Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov.Photo © Dr.C. Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov / Twitter

Mirta Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez, who was the first wife of the late Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and mother of his eldest son, died this Saturday at the age of 95.

The news was announced on his Twitter account by his grandson Fidel Antonio Castro Smirnov, son of Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart "Fidelito" (who committed suicide in 2018) with the Russian citizen Olga Smirnova.

Surrounded by much love, my dear grandmother Mirta Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez departed. A great woman is leaving us. Her end is not death. Her special affection, loyalty, and extraordinary story will remain eternal. She will continue to be the most concrete and kind way of beauty," he wrote.

Mirta Francisca de la Caridad Díaz-Balart Gutiérrez was born in Havana on September 30, 1928, the daughter of a wealthy Cuban politician.

He was studying Philosophy at the University of Havana when he met Fidel, a Law School student and student leader. They got married in 1948 against her family's opposition, which nonetheless financed the wedding. They spent their honeymoon in Miami and New York.

Fidelito was born in 1949, the couple's only child. They divorced in 1955 when Fidel was exiled in Mexico. She retained sole custody of the child.

In 1956, Mirta married lawyer Emilio Núñez Blanco, who came from a family loyal to Fulgencio Batista and was the son of a former Cuban ambassador to the UN, Emilio Núñez Portuondo.

A report from the Spanish newspaper El Mundo from 2016 recounts that when Fidel found out about the wedding, he had his son sent to Mexico under the pretense of wanting to say goodbye to him, just in case he died in his political struggles. However, once there, he detained him by force. In the end, Núñez Portuondo himself rescued Fidelito.

After the triumph of the revolution, in 1968 Mirta and her husband, parents of two daughters, Mirta and América Silvia, definitively left for Spain, while Fidelito was sent to study in the Soviet Union.

Emilio, a staunch enemy of Castroism, collaborated with several newspapers in Miami. She, on the other hand, maintained a discreet profile throughout her life and never appeared in the media nor spoke about her past or her relationship with Fidel.

"He never spoke ill or well of Fidel, he never spoke. Even for those of us who knew his past, he was unmentionable, perhaps because he wanted to erase that page of his existence," revealed a close friend to El Mundo.

In Madrid lived two of Mirta's brothers: Waldo, a renowned painter, and Rafael, a former official from Fulgencio Batista's government, who also resided in Miami. Rafael is the father of the well-known Republican congressmen Lincoln and Mario Díaz-Balart, whom Mirta wanted as her own children.

Fidelito and his mother were always very close, he went to see her in Madrid and she also made occasional visits to Havana, organized by Raúl Castro himself, according to an article in El Nuevo Herald in 2020.

According to a report from the Spanish newspaper El Confidencial, in 2006, when it was announced that Fidel Castro was handing over power to his brother Raúl due to his illness, she was in Havana. During her stay there, her husband passed away in Madrid, who had been ill with Alzheimer's for years and was in a nursing home.

Two years later, at the age of 80, she went to the Island again and was together with her son at the inauguration of a scientific event. On that occasion, mother and son posed for the cameras for the first time in decades.

"She looked radiant, very happy to be with Fidelito. She is a woman who has preserved herself extremely well despite her age," a source told El Nuevo Herald.

Mirtha Díaz-Balart was the only woman Fidel Castro married in a church.

After learning about the dictator's death in 2016, she stated that she was affected.

"I have felt sorrow for his death, even though that story happened over 60 years ago. These days I have been praying for his soul, I am a Christian," she told El Mundo.

"I remember my marriage to Fidel as something distant, but also as a very beautiful stage of my youth. I have never wished him harm, I have always wished him good things," she added.

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