Tens of thousands of Cubans rallied on Saturday Dec 03,2016 to pay one more tribute to the late leader Fidel Castro before his ashes are buried in the cradle of his revolution.
The crowd in Revolution Plaza in the eastern city of Santiago de Cuba waved small Cuban flags and held pictures of Castro at a ceremony led by his brother, President Raul Castro.
A convoy carrying a cedar urn containing his ashes had arrived earlier in the day following a four-day, 900-kilometer (560-mile) funeral procession across the country.
Raul Castro, who took over when his brother fell ill in 2006, will deliver an eagerly awaited speech during the massive tribute with foreign dignitaries, the second such gathering this week after a huge rally in Havana on Tuesday Nov 29,2016
The guest list includes African leaders, leftist Latin American allies such as Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro, and Argentine football legend Diego Maradona, who called Castro his "second father."
"He fought and won, so I think he left all of the people of Latin America a magnificent example," the leftist former Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff said. "It's a difficult time for us in Latin America, especially in Brazil."
Capping a nine-day mourning period, the remains will be interred on Sunday during a private ceremony at the Santa Ifigenia cemetery, where the 19th-century independence hero Jose Marti is buried.
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