Cuba Heroine Melba Hernández Dies at 92

HAVANA TIMES — Melba Hernández, one of the assailants on the Moncada Barracks alongside Fidel Castro in July 1953, died in Havana on Sunday night as a result of complications associated with diabetes, Granma newspaper reported.

Hernandez body will be cremated and her ashes kept temporarily at the Ministry of the Armed Forces until they are transferred to the cemetery of Saint Iphigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba to be deposited along with the remains of other participants in the attack on the Moncada.

A statement from the Central Committee of the Communist Party recalls that Melba actively participated in the struggle to overthrow Fulgencio Batista, one of the first to join the ranks of the movement led by Fidel Castro.

Hernandez was deputy to the National Assembly from 1976-1986, and elected again in 1993.