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Some 128 Cuban doctors will have to leave Honduras following the government's decision not to renew the agreement for cooperation that has allowed their stay in the country for the past two years, official sources reported on Tuesday.
The contract, signed during the previous administration of the leftist president Xiomara Castro, will expire next Wednesday. The current administration of President Nasry Asfura -backed by his American counterpart Donald Trump- decided not to extend the agreement.
"The departure of Cuban doctors is a decision of foreign policy," declared the Secretary of Communications, José Augusto Argueta, to the local channel HCH.
For his part, the Deputy Minister of Health, Eduardo Midence, assured that the brigade will be replaced by properly accredited national or foreign personnel.
"We are going to work to hire Honduran or foreign doctors who are properly accredited by the Medical Association," the official stated.
According to Gonzalo Valerio, a member of the Honduras-Cuba Friendship Association, the brigade consists of 128 specialists who are waiting for the coordination of a charter flight to return to the island at the beginning of March.
Honduras thus joins other countries in the region that have ended similar agreements with Havana. Guatemala and Antigua and Barbuda recently canceled these agreements, while Guyana has raised the possibility of directly compensating Cuban professionals following pressure from the United States, which has classified these missions as mechanisms of slave labor.
One of the main programs developed by the brigade in Honduras was ophthalmological care through the so-called Miracle Mission, inaugurated decades ago by the dictator Fidel Castro.
By October 2025, approximately 44,000 consultations and nearly 7,000 surgeries had been performed, according to official data.
The Deputy Minister of Health assured that the clinics offering these treatments will not be closed and that the service will continue under the supervision of new professionals.
The deployment of medical brigades is one of the main sources of foreign currency income for the Cuban regime, which maintains such agreements in several countries. The Honduran decision comes amid increasing international pressure on these programs.
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