Fidel Ángel Castro Díaz-Balart was found on Thursday morning and is said to have suffered from depression.

The first-born son of the late president was nicknamed “Fidelito”, or Little Fidel, because of the family resemblance.

He was a nuclear physicist, trained by the former Soviet Union.

“Fidel Castro Díaz-Balart, who had been treated by a group of doctors for several months due to deep depression, took his life this morning,” Cuba’s official newspaper Granma reported.

State television said he had been receiving medical treatment as an outpatient in recent months, following a hospital stay.

At the time of his death, he was a scientific adviser for the Cuban Council of State and he served as vice president of Cuba’s Academy of Sciences.

He headed the island’s nuclear programme from 1980 to 1992, before it was suspended after the Soviet Union’s collapse.

Castro Díaz-Balart was born during his father’s brief first marriage to Mirta Díaz-Balart, the daughter of a prominent pre-revolution politician.

His maternal family went on to become prominent figures in the anti-Castro community in Florida. His cousin Mario Díaz-Balart is a US congressman.

The television announcement said his funeral would be planned by his family, but no further details were given.

His father, Fidel Castro, a revolutionary figure and one of the world’s longest serving political leaders, died at 90 in 2016.

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Source: BBC

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“The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (03:29 GMT Saturday),” President Raul Castro said.

Fidel Castro ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul took over in 2008.

His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. But he was also accused of suppressing opposition.

Ashen and grave, President Castro told the nation in an unexpected late night broadcast on state television that Fidel Castro had died and would be cremated on Saturday.

There would now be several days of national mourning on the island.

Raul Castro ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Towards victory, always!”

Barring the occasional newspaper column, Fidel Castro had essentially been retired from political life for some time, the BBC’s Will Grant in Havana reports.

In April, Fidel Castro gave a rare speech on the final day of the country’s Communist Party congress.

He acknowledged his advanced age but said Cuban communist concepts were still valid and the Cuban people “will be victorious”.

“I’ll soon be 90,” the former president said, adding that this was “something I’d never imagined”.

“Soon I’ll be like all the others, “to all our turn must come,” Fidel Castro said.

Castro – who had survived many assassination plots – was the longest serving non-royal leader of the 20th Century.

Castro temporarily handed over power to his brother in 2006 as he was recovering from an acute intestinal ailment.

Raul Castro officially became president two years later.

Cuba’s revolutionary leader
Throughout the Cold War, Fidel Castro was Washington’s bete noire.

An accomplished tactician on the battlefield, he and his small army of guerrillas overthrew the military leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959 to widespread popular support.

Within two years of taking power, he declared the revolution to be Marxist-Leninist in nature and allied the island nation firmly to the Soviet Union.

Yet, despite the constant threat of a US invasion as well as the long-standing economic embargo on the island, Castro managed to maintain a communist revolution in a nation just 90 miles (145km) off the coast of Florida.

Despised by his critics as much as he was revered by his followers, he outlasted ten US presidents and defied scores of attempts on his life by the CIA.

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Source: BBC

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