On the afternoon of January 11, Ambassador of the Republic of Cuba Hugo Ruiz Cabrera passed away suddenly in Havana.

Hugo graduated with a degree in International Relations in 1986 and served an internationalist mission in Angola between 1987 and 1989.

In 1994 he began working at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During his career of more than three decades in the service of revolutionary diplomacy, he occupied various functions in the internal service as a specialist in the directorates of Asia and Oceania, of Dissemination and Information, as a specialist of Deputy Minister José Armando Guerra Menchero and in the directorate of Latin America and the Caribbean, where he accumulated a vast experience.

In the foreign service he fulfilled several official missions and worked as an official in the Cuban embassies in Tanzania, Kenya and China. He served as Ambassador to Saint Lucia, Saint Kitts and Nevis and the Commonwealth of Dominica.

He was among the first young people selected to study Chinese language in the People’s Republic of China.

He received the Distinguished Service Medals of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Internationalist Combatant Medal.

At the time of his death he was working in the Directorate of Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean of the General Directorate of Latin America and the Caribbean.