Mother of Fidel Castro’s estranged daughter dies in Havana

Natalia “Naty” Revuelta Clews, mother of Alina Fernandez, the estranged daughter of Fidel Castro, died last weekend at a clinic in the Cuban capital, a family friend said Monday. She was 89.

“Naty felt ill last Wednesday and was taken to the clinic where she remained until her death,” Carmen Garcia, who over the past 20 years accompanied and cared for Revuelta at her home in the Havana neighborhood of Nuevo Vedado, told Efe over the phone.

Revuelta “was aware that she wasn’t going home and said she wanted to be cremated and have her ashes cast into the sea,” Garcia said.

Alina Fernandez Revuelta and her daughter, Alina Salgado Fernandez Mumin, who live in Miami, are now in Havana and fulfilled the “last wish” of Revuelta for when she died, Garcia said.

Revuelta, who passed away last Saturday, suffered a stroke in 2014, from which she recovered and returned to a normal life.

Revuelta’s illness was the reason her daughter Alina returned to the island last August after a 21year absence, and since then has traveled to Havana “every month” to see how her mother’s health was progressing, Garcia said.

Known for her critical positions against the Cuban regime, Fernandez Revuelta, 58, is the author of the autobiographical “Castro’s Daughter: An Exile’s Memoir of Cuba.”

Also in a statement to Efe, writer Natalia Bolivar, a friend of Naty for more than 50 years, said she learned of her death because Alina herself phoned her to let her know.

She said she talked on the phone with Revuelta a month ago, and found her “very cheerful and with the strong spirit that characterized her.”

“But I did have a feeling that I’d never see her again,” Bolivar said.

Natalia Revuelta was a member of the revolutionary July 26 Movement led by Fidel Castro, with whom she had a relationship from which Alina was born in 1956, three years before the victory of the revolution that brought him to power.

Revuelta, considered one of the most beautiful women of Havana society at the time, married Cuban cardiologist Orlando Fernandez.