Relatives and friends of Alejandro Barrios Martínez, one of the Cubans killed in the massacre at the gay club Pulse, in Orlando, have posted the young man's last messages on the social networks, sent to the person he loved.
"I don't have time to tell you. I'm in a shooting and I can't get out. Frightened, with blood," wrote Barrios Martínez, 21, to his partner, Aday Suárez Molina, according to an image published by the latter on Facebook. "I love you, be sure of that," he added.
Barrios Martínez sent the messages to Suárez Molina between 2:49 and 2:52 am on Sunday morning, as Omar Mateen, a supporter of the Islamic State terrorist group, was firing on those at the club.
"My love, I’m afraid of dying. The police haven´t shown up, and I'm locked in the bathroom," wrote the youth.
"With people who are wounded, and dead. I'm fine but I don´t know if I'll get out alive. I'm writing to tell you that I love you," he added.
"I swear that I love you," was his last message.
Molina Suárez published photos and a video of Barrios Martínez. "You left me, damn it. God, it hurts! You will always be in my soul, my life and my heart," he wrote.
Alejandro Barrios Martínez, a native of Candelaria, Pinar del Rio, had been living in the US since 2014.
Florida Republican Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen reported on Twitter that his mother, Orquídea Martínez, had received a non-immigrant visa on Wednesday to travel to the US to attend her son's funeral.
On Tuesday Ros-Lehtinen had sent a letter to the charge d'affaires at the US Embassy in Havana, Jeffrey DeLaurentis, to intercede on behalf of Martínez.
The Cuban-American Congresswoman told DeLaurentis that Martínez had not seen her son since he had left the island.
"It's an extremely difficult time for the family, and the physical separation makes it harder to endure this terrible tragedy," Ros-Lehtinen said.
49 people died at the massacre at the Pulse club. The list includes another Cuban, Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24, born in Havana and a Tampa resident.
Mariela Castro Espín, director of the State's National Sex Education Center, whose functions include defending the rights of the LGBT community on the island, published a message on Facebook expressing "solidarity" with the American people.
"Once again, the people of the United States, and particularly the LGBT community, are victims of hate crimes involving firearms (...) I am devastated by this terrible event, amidst media confusion which, far from helping loved ones to process the grief, and American society to seek solutions, encourages hatred, stigma and discrimination," wrote Castro Espín.
"There is more and more news of violent acts threatening the exercise of human rights in the United States, placing the issue of arms sales at the center of debate," the sexologist said. "I have not lost hope that the American people will use this pain to ultimately forge a society free of violence," she said.
Neither Castro Espín nor her father, Raúl Castro, who sent condolences to US President Barack Obama, have mentioned the Cuban victims of the tragedy.
"Does he know (Raúl Castro) that there are also people from his country devastated by the attack?" asked the journalist Álvaro Álvarez, a cousin of Alejandro Barrios Martínez, on his Facebook page.
"He is going to extend his condolences to a Cuban family that they divided, when some today must mourn their victims in two different countries, unable to embrace and console each other? Now that they have an embassy in the United States, will the family members be contacted to offer help?" Álvarez asked.
In statements to the Washington BladeÁlvarez said that his cousin was not very interested in political issues, but was "aware of the struggle by the (LGBT) community " and "asserted his individual rights."