DHAKA: Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States, has died aged 90.

Raul Castro, Fidel's brother and current president of Cuba, announced his death on state television early on Saturday, reports Al Jazeera.

“The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 hours this evening (Friday),” the president announced on national television.

The leader of the 1959 revolution, which overthrew the US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista, defied the US efforts to topple him for five decades, before ill health led him to make way for his brother Raul, 84, in 2006.

In his final years, Fidel lived in relative seclusion but occasionally wrote opinion pieces or appeared meeting with visiting dignitaries.

Al Jazeera’s Latin America editor, Lucia Newman, reporting from Santiago, Chile, said Castro’s death hardly came as a surprise.

“He has been a larger-than-life figure who inspired a revolutionary moment all over the world, especially in Latin America,” Newman said.

“As time has gone by we have been hearing less and less from Fidel Castro. We all know he has been ill for a decade and was not been seen since August after his birthday, which was celebrated across the country.”

“His death is going to have an enormous emotional impact on Cubans. It does really feel like the beginning of the end of the Castro era.”

BDST: 1130/1140/1246 HRS, NOV 26, 2016
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