The Cuban citizen Mercedes Roque reported in a Facebook video addressed directly to the Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Álvaro López Miera, that the meeting held this Monday with representatives of MINFAR was a further institutional mockery: none of the officials she had specifically requested attended.
The mother has been demanding answers for 13 months regarding the death of her son Antonio Alejandro Rassi Roque, aged 18, who passed away on August 18, 2025, at Military Unit 5050 "El Calvario" in Havana, just 21 days after entering Mandatory Military Service.
The meeting this Monday was attended only by three lieutenant colonels—identified as Aysel, Norque, and a third whose name Roque could not recall—without the presence of Major Ricardo Martínez, the head of the unit at the time Antonio arrived, nor First Lieutenant political Aldo Fabregas Ardiles, whom the mother identifies as the "direct responsible" for her son's death.
"For me, it was a complete waste of time. One more sheet to keep, full," declared Roque in the video posted on his Facebook profile.
On August 20, 2026, the woman submitted a letter of complaint to MINFAR requesting the formation of a commission with those specific officials. None of the requests were fulfilled.
"Where does a mother have to go to seek justice, true transparency for the death of a son who died in your institutions, under military custody, under state custody?" Roque asked in the video.
According to his account, Antonio showed visible signs of psychological decline within the unit: he could not control his sleep, stopped bathing, appeared disoriented, and wore a dirty uniform. He was threatened with being sent to a punishment unit and suspended for 49 days of leave, which his mother considers the "trigger" for the outcome.
The last communication between mother and son was at 8:55 AM on August 18, 2025, when Antonio told her that he was going on duty. He died at 2:45 PM. The official version classified the death as a "personal decision," but Roque rejects that explanation: "My son's death was, plain and simple, the reaction to an action provoked in the unit."
The case was archived via provisional dismissal on July 2, 2026, when prosecutor Velázquez informed the family of the closure of the file. No official has been prosecuted to date.
"It is a total and genuine mockery and a constant harassment that mothers and fathers receive who dare to denounce what is happening in the disastrous compulsory military service in Cuba," stated Roque.
The case is part of a documented pattern of deaths in the SMO. A report by elTOQUE published on September 28 recorded at least 89 deaths of recruits between 2017 and 2026, with a dramatic increase: from 15 fatalities between 2017 and 2021 to 70 between 2022 and 2025. The Cuban Observatory for Citizen Auditing raises the number to 97 dead or missing between 2001 and the spring of 2026.
Roque announced that he will file a formal complaint to MINFAR for the third time and that he will continue to report the case at both the national and international levels.
"I am not going to go in mine, nor will I ever see it," he said as he closed the video, referring to the fact that he will never again see his son cross the threshold of his home.
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