Cuban woman seeks help to find Yemeni father missing for 30 years

Gisselle Romero Zapata, a young Cuban woman, has issued an urgent humanitarian appeal to the people of Aden, Yemen, to help her locate her father, who has been missing for over 30 years.

According to Zapata, her father, identified as Abdullah or Abdul Ali Saleh, was studying engineering—likely in the oil and petroleum sector—in Havana, Cuba, around 1993. Her mother, María Luisa Zapata Márquez, recalls that he was an active football player and potentially a team captain during his time in Cuba.

To assist in the search, Zapata provided several details: her father's name, his approximate period of residence in Cuba, and a mention that his family may have had connections to a financial institution or entity associated with the name ‘Al-Aidarous,’ suggesting roots in the Al-Aidarous area of Aden. Zapata emphasized that her search is purely personal and not motivated by financial gain, stating, “I do not want money or anything material; I only want to find my father and my family.” She is seeking information from anyone who may have known Yemeni students in Cuba during the late 1980s or early 1990s.