Cuban official in Kenya amid claims kidnapped doctors killed

The president of Cuba's National Assembly, Esteban Lazo Hernández, has travelled to Kenya to seek clarification over recent unconfirmed reports which suggested that two Cuban doctors who were kidnapped in Kenya in 2019 had been killed.

The doctors, Assel Herrera Correa and Landy Rodríguez Hernández, were kidnapped by al-Shabaab militants as they travelled to work.

Last weekend, al-Shabaab said that the doctors had been killed last Thursday during a US drone strike targeted at a house in the southern Somali town of Jilib.

A US defence official was quoted by CNN as saying that there was no credible evidence that the strike caused any civilian casualties, but added that the US was investigating al-Shabaab's claim of the doctors' deaths.

Cuba's foreign affairs ministry says it has also reached out to the US and Somali governments for more details on the military operation in question and the status of the doctors.

After the 2019 kidnapping, al-Shabaab gunmen then killed an armed policeman who was guarding the doctors.

The militant group then took the doctors to neighbouring Somalia, later demanding a $1.5m (£1.1m) ransom for the release of the doctors.