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Death of Benito Martínez Abogán, the
oldest man in Cuba
BY ORTELIO GONZALEZ
MARTINEZ —Granma daily staff writer—
CIEGO DE AVILA.— Benito Martínez Abogán – also known
as Avión – the oldest man in Cuba, has died in this
city after an irreversible deterioration in his
state of health.
After being admitted one week ago to the
intermediate care room at the Antonio Luaces Iraola
hospital, the cardiac problems from which he had
been suffering for some time worsened.
Last
June 19, he celebrated his 126th birthday. As his
condition worsened he remained for the most part
within the Camilo Cienfuegos Gerontology Center,
where he received extremely thorough attention.
The
long-lived man came to Cuba from Haiti and settled
in the former province of Oriente at the end of the
second decade of the last century.
In
1925, he moved to the neighborhood of Vila, east of
Ciego de Avila. He lived an extremely modest life
until the provincial authorities, with the help of
his neighbors, constructed a comfortable home for
him, in which he confessed, he did not really enjoy
spending much of his time.
His vitality was such that when reporters discovered
him, at the age of 119 years, this Cuban, who had
seen three centuries, was hoe in hand on his
smallholding which, as he told journalists on that
occasion, was the best place in the world to live.
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