Cuban Americans cheered Fidel Castro’s death on the streets of Miami Friday night, singing, waving flags and popping champagne corks in jubilant celebrations that lasted into the early morning hours.
News of the dictator’s death spread quickly in Little Havana, the center of the Cuban exile community, and crowds of joyful people quickly poured onto the streets, reports CNN. Some banged on pots, waved the Cuban flag and drank champagne in celebration of the death of the dictator who caused many of them to flee their homes and resettle in the United States.
Hundreds of people gathered in front of a popular restaurant for the exile community called Versailles, with some chanting, dancing and singing, while others captured the moments on their smartphones. Some shouted “libertad” or “freedom.”
“This is a celebration but in a way, not a celebration of a death but it’s a celebration hopefully of a beginning of liberty that we are all waiting for, for many years,” one of the crowd members told CNN. “The hope is that not just because Fidel died, but also hopefully it opens up the people in Cuba a little bit more to go against what’s happening there.”
The retired dictator died at the age of 90, Cuban state television reported Friday night. The communist revolutionary was a major figure of the Cold War who was a dominant political figure in the Cuba for nearly five decades. He turned over authority to his younger brother Raul Castro in 2008.
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