Cuba Solidarity and anxiety after attack on regional ally

Dr Ifrain Pérez had been checking the news on his phone since the early hours.

- Alexandra Topping Guardian reporter Havana

All day, the seizure of the Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro, had been the main subject of conversation in hisneighbourhood in Havana.

“It’s really pretty unpleasant news, for Cuba and the world,” he said on Saturday.

Pérez, 62, served twice in Venezuela as part of Cuban medical missions, from 2005 to 2011 and from 2013 to 2016. “I’m worried because I know many Venezuelans,” he said. “The most important thing is to achieve stability and that President Nicolas Maduro go back to his nation.”

During a meeting on Saturday, the Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, called the incident “an unacceptable, vulgar and barbarian kidnapping”. He said the US attack was an “act of state terrorism, comparable only to the crimes against humanity committed by Israeli Zionism in the Gaza Strip”.