Che Guevara’s daughter: A Cuban doctor in Angola

In 1986 Dr Aleida Guevara, the daughter of revolutionary icon Che Guevara, went to Angola to work as a paediatrician.

Dr Aleida was one of a number of medics Fidel Castro’s Cuban government sent to their fellow communist country in southern Africa as it emerged from Portuguese colonialism into civil war.

Marcia Veiga hears how Dr Aleida treated children with cholera in a hospital in the Angolan capital Luanda.

Dr Aleida also reveals how, during downtime from working as Cuba’s minister of industries, her tired father played with her by carrying her on his back as if he were a horse.

The music for this programme is from Dadifox and Receba.

(Photo: Dr Aleida Guevara with a patient at Luanda’s Josina Machel Hospital. Credit: Dr Aleida Guevara)