Nancy Uranga

Nancy Uranga was 22 years old and from the Pablo de la Torriente Brau sugar mill in Pinar del Rio, Nancy was one of Cuba’s top fencers. She was studying biology at the University of Havana and had participated in international fencing events since 1972, when she competed in the USSR. The arenas of several counties (the GDR, Panama, Mexico, Hungary, Italy and Canada) had witnessed her superb skills. She participated in the Pan-American Games in the Mexican capital and in the Montreal Olympics 1976. She was carrying her first child when she was killed in the airplane bombing of Cubana de Aviacion flight 455.

This flight from Barbados to Jamaica was also carrying 24 members of the Cuban National Fencing Team. It was brought down by a terrorist attack at Oct 6, 1976 by a CIA-linked Cuban exile, Luis Posada Carriles. All 73 passengers died. Political complications quickly arose when Cuba accused the US government of being an accomplice to the attack. CIA documents released in 2005 indicate that the agency “had concrete advance intelligence, as early as June 1976, on plans by Cuban exile terrorist groups to bomb a Cubana airliner.” Former CIA operative Posada Carriles denied involvement but provided many details of the incident in his book “Caminos del Guerrero” (Way of the Warrior).