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15 Questions and Answers on “The First Cuban Medical Brigade in Algeria in 1963”

Salim Lamrani
Cet article est une traduction de :
15 questions/réponses sur « La première brigade médicale cubaine en Algérie en 1963 »  [fr]
Autre(s) traduction(s) de cet article :
15 preguntas/respuestas sobre “La primera brigada médica cubana en Argelia en 1963” [es]

Texte intégral

“The deployment of a Cuban medical brigade to Algeria is the revolutionary expression of solidarity among peoples of the Global South”
Salim Lamrani

1. What do we know about the first Cuban medical brigade in Algeria?

This was a moment when internationalism took concrete form. In 1963, Algeria was emerging from an extremely violent war of liberation, while Cuba had just broken with U.S. hegemony and was suffering under a blockade. Two poor, besieged countries nonetheless decided to come to one another’s aid.

Sending a Cuban medical brigade to Algeria was not merely a humanitarian gesture; it was the practical expression of a revolutionary conception of solidarity among peoples of the Global South. It was also one of the very first major experiences of international medical cooperation carried out by a Third World country.

2. What was Algeria’s public health situation like at independence?

It was catastrophic. The country emerged devastated: villages destroyed, infrastructure in ruins, populations displaced, and widespread epidemics. Most doctors were Europeans, who left with the end of colonial rule.

In 1962-63, for a population of 11 million, Algeria had only about 600 doctors left, barely half of them Algerian. In a country ravaged by war and disease, this was a looming disaster. This was the situation Ben Bella described to Fidel Castro during his visit to Havana in October 1962.

3. How did the idea of a Cuban medical brigade come about in concrete terms?

During that visit, Ben Bella explained the gravity of the health crisis to Castro. Fidel spoke about it publicly on October 17, 1962, citing the figures and describing “a truly tragic situation” in Algeria.

He then issued a call for 50 volunteer doctors to go to Algeria. He emphasized that this would be “an expression of solidarity” with a friendly people “in a situation worse than ours.” In other words, Cuba, despite its own hardships, recognized that Algeria was even more severely affected and decided to act.

4. Was Cuba also short of doctors?

Yes, which makes the decision even more remarkable. After 1959, nearly half of Cuba’s doctors left the country, drawn to the United States, which openly encouraged this exodus as a political weapon against the Revolution. For a poor island, losing so many health professionals was dramatic.

Despite this, Havana chose to send doctors to Algeria. It was a moral gamble: placing revolutionary solidarity above its own immediate needs, at least in part. This was very far from any logic of “self-interested cooperation.”

5. Who made up this first brigade, and how was it deployed in Algeria?

In May 1963, the first brigade left for Algeria. It consisted of 29 doctors, 4 dentists, 14 nurses, and 7 health technicians, including about ten women.

It was accompanied by Cuba’s minister of public health, José Ramón Machado Ventura. The teams were deployed across several major cities and regions: Algiers, Blida, Sidi Bel Abbès, Constantine, Sétif, Biskra, and others. The goal was to ensure the widest possible coverage.

The head of the brigade was Dr. Pablo Resik Habib, chosen in part because of his Arab origins. The doctors continued to receive their salaries in Cuba, paid to their families. The Cuban government covered their expenses, while Algeria provided housing and sometimes food.

6. What difficulties did Cuban doctors encounter on the ground?

The first barrier was language. Most spoke neither Arabic nor French. Translation “chains” had to be improvised: an interpreter helped communicate with the patient, sometimes through a third language.

Then there was cultural shock: an Arab-Muslim society with codes, customs, and attitudes toward the body and illness very different from those in Cuba. The doctors had to learn quickly, adapt, and earn trust.

There was also the human dimension: many left young families behind. Resik recounted that he departed leaving his wife alone with their three-month-old baby, without family in Havana to help her. But he also emphasized the moral support of loved ones, who viewed the mission as a revolutionary duty.

7. How did Cuban doctors experience this mission on a human level?

Resik said that in Algeria they created a “small homeland,” taking care of one another to compensate for distance and separation. He spoke of the happiness of “giving” as greater than that of receiving.

Pediatrician Sara Perelló recalled learning Arabic, which transformed her relationship with families. Children and parents sometimes called her “half Arab, half Cuban.” Patients were surprised to see doctors who asked for no money: consultations were free, breaking with colonial-era habits.

For many, the mission was a formative shock. They confronted diseases they had never seen before, such as certain forms of malaria or parasitic infections, worked with extremely limited resources, and came away with the feeling that their profession had a “higher meaning” than they had imagined.

8. Was this mission only a response to a health emergency?

It primarily addressed Algeria’s urgent shortage of doctors. But for Cuba, it was also a political act. By intervening in a newly decolonized country held in high regard across the Third World, Havana practiced revolutionary solidarity through action, not just words.

It was also an act of strategic autonomy: Cuba acted independently of the great powers, without going through the USSR, and presented itself as a full-fledged actor in South-South diplomacy. This first brigade foreshadowed the medical internationalism that would become one of Cuba’s hallmarks.

9. How long did this medical cooperation last, and why did it end in 1965?

The first mission lasted one year. In June 1964, a second brigade arrived with 61 health professionals, including 27 women. In total, Cuban doctors worked in Algeria for two full years.

The mission ended abruptly on June 19, 1965, after Houari Boumediene’s coup against Ahmed Ben Bella. Fidel Castro openly condemned the overthrow, recalled his ambassador, and defended Ben Bella’s revolutionary legitimacy, viewing him as one of the most radical and coherent voices of the Third World. In this context, medical cooperation was suspended.

10. How did Algerian–Cuban relations evolve after the coup?

They cooled but never completely broke. This was not an ideological rupture, but a period of mistrust and political adjustment. Relations later resumed and warmed significantly with Fidel Castro’s visit to Algeria on May 8, 1972, eventually regaining strong intensity.

Even today, cooperation remains vibrant: about 1,200 Cuban health professionals, mostly women, work in Algeria across dozens of facilities in many provinces. Cuba has also established ophthalmology centers that have restored sight to thousands of patients.

11. How did the world perceive the Algeria-Cuba duo at the time?

There was a mix of fascination and suspicion. The newspaper Le Monde noted that for the Soviets, the Algerian Revolution resembled the Cuban Revolution: the same prestige, the same charismatic figure, Ben Bella on one side, Castro on the other. In Moscow, Ben Bella’s 1964 visit was greeted with enthusiasm comparable to that accorded to the Cuban leader.

For the CIA, Algeria supported “virtually every movement carrying the anti-colonialist label.” It played a role similar to Cuba’s, but in Africa. Both countries became symbolic references for peoples in struggle: Algiers as the “Mecca of revolutionaries,” Havana as the “island of freedom.”

12. What was the nature of the personal bond between Ahmed Ben Bella and Fidel Castro?

It was a genuine political friendship, rooted in mutual respect. Ben Bella sometimes cited Fidel Castro as a model. The United States even considered him “Cuba’s closest friend in the world, possibly closer than the Soviet Union.”

Yet their ideological paths were not identical: Cuba embraced explicit Marxism-Leninism, while Algeria spoke of an “Algerian socialism” adapted to its history and culture. But they converged on the essentials: anti-colonialism, rejection of domination, and absolute sovereignty in choosing their own path.

13. What place did sovereignty and autonomy occupy in this relationship?

They were central. Neither Algiers nor Havana wanted to be anyone’s satellite, not even the USSR’s. The United States acknowledged that Cuba was not “under Soviet control” and clearly saw that Algeria followed its own line.

Ben Bella stated this explicitly in a message to Lyndon Johnson: Cuba had the right to choose the political system and orientation it deemed appropriate for its people. For him, defending Cuba meant defending the very principle of self-determination. Cuba, in turn, viewed the Algerian struggle as a “true example” for Third World countries.

14. What does this episode teach us about the nature of South-South diplomacy at the time?

Algerian-Cuban cooperation was based neither on balanced trade, Cuba supplied almost nothing but sugar, which Algeria did not even really buy, nor on classic power calculations. It rested on values: justice, dignity, and recognition of a moral debt.

The Cuban doctors who went to Algeria were not seeking contracts, but coherence with their idea of revolution. And Algerians welcomed them as brothers, not as service providers. This created a shared sense of destiny that transcended regime changes and circumstances.

15. How can we summarize the historical significance of this first medical brigade?

It embodied, in a concrete gesture, the best of twentieth-century internationalism. An exhausted Algeria, a besieged Cuba, and yet a shared decision that solidarity among liberated peoples is not a luxury, but a duty.

These doctors, coming from across the Atlantic, showed that a revolution is measured not only by its speeches or military victories, but by its ability to heal, to assist, and to stand alongside another people when they need it most. It is this human dimension that makes the first Cuban medical brigade in Algeria a founding moment in Algerian-Cuban friendship and a lasting landmark in the history of South–South.

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Salim Lamrani, « 15 Questions and Answers on “The First Cuban Medical Brigade in Algeria in 1963” »Études caribéennes [En ligne], 16 | Février 2026, mis en ligne le 12 février 2026, consulté le 13 mars 2026. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/etudescaribeennes/38218 ; DOI : https://doi.org/10.4000/15qcw

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Salim Lamrani

Professeur des universités, Faculté de Lettres et Sciences Humaines, Département d’études hispaniques et latino-américaines, Université de La Réunion

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