Brigadier General Rafael Moracén Limonta, Hero of the Republic, Passes Away

March 27, 2022

The Ministry of the Armed Forces of Cuba (Minfar) reported this Saturday of the death of Brigadier General Rafael Moracén Limonta, Hero of the Republic, combatant of the Third Front and internationalist with recognized work in Angola and Syria.

Moracén died at age 83 on March 25, 2022.

At only 18 years old, Moracén Limonta joined the rebel forces in the fight against Fulgencio Batista, always under the orders of Commander Juan Almeida Bosque in the Third Front "Mario Muñoz".

After the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, he held various responsibilities as head of platoon, company, battalion and tank regiment, in addition to commanding the division of the Territorial Troops Militia in Matanzas, where he was also chief of staff.

Moracén Limonta was Cuba's military naval and air attaché in Angola, and also fulfilled an internationalist mission in Syria in 1973, when he served as head of the International Relations Secretariat of the Association of Combatants of the Revolution.

This Brigadier General was a founder of the Communist Party of Cuba and a delegate to several of its Congresses, as well as a deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power in its first and second legislative terms.

Following news of Moracén Limonta's death, Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel sent his condolences through a message on Twitter: "My condolences to brothers-in-arms, family and friends of Brigadier General (ret.) Rafael Moracén, Hero of Cuba and of sister nations where the valor and ethics of Cuban internationalists grew alongside the legend of the brave Quitafusil".

The ashes of Rafael Moracén Limonta will be displayed this Monday in the Veterans Pantheon of the Colón Necropolis, in Havana, and will later be transferred to the Mausoleum of the Third Front in Santiago de Cuba.