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Vehicle Carrying Fidel Castro's Ashes Breaks Down During Funeral Procession

Soldiers had to push the vehicle carrying the remains of the former dictator.
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Overnight Editor, HuffPost

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Soldiers push the vehicle and trailer carrying the ashes of Fidel Castro after it broke down during the procession.
Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

A vehicle carrying the ashes of longtime Cuban dictator Fidel Castro broke down during a funeral cortège on Saturday and had to be pushed by soldiers through part of the procession.

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Ivan Alvarado/Reuters

Breakdowns are common in Cuba, where the longtime U.S. trade embargo has limited the number of new cars in the country. Many of the vehicles on the road are decades old. 

The vehicle hauling the trailer carrying Castro’s remains broke down on the road near the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba during Saturday’s procession.

Castro, who led the Cuban Revolution in the 1950s, ruled the country with an iron fist before resigning in 2008. 

He died on Nov. 25 at the age of 90. 

H/T Wall Street Journal

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Before You Go

Fidel Castro 1926 - 2016
(01 of17)
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Fidel Castro poses for a portrait in 1953. (credit:Keystone-France\Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)
(02 of17)
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It was a beardless, rather boyish Fidel Castro who was busy raising funds for a Cuban Revolution in 1955. The scene was New York City, where Castro was a familiar figure among the city's Cuban leaders. (credit:Bettmann via Getty Images)
(03 of17)
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Castro practices shooting in Mexico, during the preparations of 1956 uprising after disembarking from the Granma with 82 men starting the guerrilla fighting in the Sierra Maestra in eastern Cuba. (credit:OAH/AFP/Getty Images)
(04 of17)
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Castro gives an autograph to an admirer in Camaguey, Cuba on Jan. 7, 1959. While Cubans awaited Castro's arrival in Havana, cabinet ministers of the new Cuban government reported to their offices for the first time to begin a new program of reform and reconstruction. (credit:Bettmann via Getty Images)
(05 of17)
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Castro sits with his son Fidelito in the Hotel Hilton in Havana in 1959. (credit:Bettmann via Getty Images)
(06 of17)
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Castro points at a Bengal tiger in a cage at the Bronx Zoo, New York City, on April 24, 1959. (credit:Meyer Liebowitz/New York Times Co./Getty Images)
(07 of17)
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Seeming quite amused, Castro holds up a newspaper headlining the discovery of a plot to kill him in New York City on April 23, 1959. Castro survived over 600 assassination attempts in his lifetime, according to Cuban officials. The CIA reportedly once planned to kill him with an exploding cigar and even a poisoned wetsuit. (credit:Bettmann via Getty Images)
(08 of17)
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American author Ernest Hemingway speaks with Castro in Cuba in late 1959. In 1960 Hemingway was forced out of his home in Cuba due to the escalating tensions surrounding the Castro regime and moved to Idaho. (credit:American Stock Archive via Getty Images)
(09 of17)
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Castro enjoys a steak dinner while holding an impromptu press conference at the Theresa Hotel in Harlem during his visit to New York to address the United Nations on Sept. 23, 1960. (credit:Underwood Archives via Getty Images)
(10 of17)
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Castro addresses the United Nations General Assembly in New York in 1960. (credit:Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty Images)
(11 of17)
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Castro addresses a huge crowd in Santiago de Cuba in 1964 on the anniversary of the revolution. (credit:Jung/ullstein bild via Getty Images)
(12 of17)
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Castro, left, is photographed with Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, known as Che Guevara. (credit:DeAgostini/Getty Images)
(13 of17)
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Castro speaks at a press conference in 1971. (credit:Keystone via Getty Images)
(14 of17)
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Castro is photographed in his office in Havana, Cuba in 1977. (credit:David Hume Kennerly via Getty Images)
(15 of17)
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Chief of Cuba's Armed Forces, Raul Castro, Cuba's cosmonaut, Arnaldo Tamayo Mendez, Castro and Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Romanenko stand during a reception ceremony at Havana's Jose Marti airport, October 1980, after the cosmonauts returned from their space mission on Soyuz 38. (credit:PRENSA LATINA/Reuters)
(16 of17)
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Castro attends a ceremony to inaugurate remodelled schools in Havana on Aug. 13, 2002, his 76th birthday. (credit:AFP/Getty Images)
(17 of17)
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Castro greets a girl during a cultural gala to celebrate his 90th birthday in Havana, Cuba on Aug. 13, 2016. (credit:Handout/Reuters)
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