Santiago de Cuba, June 22 (RHC)-- Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel paid tribute Thursday to Cuban heroes and martyrs at the Santa Ifigenia Cemetery in Santiago de Cuba province.

The visit is part of Díaz-Canel's tour of the eastern province.   At the cemetery, the Cuban head of state laid a white lily, which grows in the Sierra Maestra mountains, at the tomb of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro.

The tributes continued, also with white flowers, as the Cuban President visited the tomb of Cuban National Hero José Martí, and those of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes –regarded as the Father of the Homeland, and heroine Mariana Grajales –the mother of the Maceo bothers.

At Santa Ifigenia, president Díaz-Canel paid tribute also to those Cubans who fell while fulfilling internationalist missions.

In Santiago de Cuba, the Cuban leader toured also the internationally known community of El Cobre, located 22 kilometers from the provincial capital, where he was enthusiastically welcomed by residents. He visited a new four-star, 74-room hotel under construction there, projected to be completed next July.

Other places toured by the Cuban president included two soy oil processing facilities, inaugurated by leader Fidel Castro in October of 2001, the Dr. Antonio María Béguez César Children’s Hospital, the Oriente Pharmaceutical Laboratory Enterprise, which is devoted to producing and distributing medications, natural products, nutritional supplements and medical equipment, and a new residential settlement called El Carmen, which is under construction to house families who lost their homes during hurricanes and other extreme weather phenomenon over the past few years and others facing precarious housing situations.