Havana, November 24 (RHC) – Cuban leader Raul Castro welcomed in Havana on Friday the second group of Cuban doctors returning from Brazil, where they offered health care services in some of the nation's most under served areas.

The doctors are among more than 8,000 medical professionals being recalled after the Cuban government rejected conditions imposed by far-right Brazilian President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, who questioned the skills of the Cubans and said he would change the conditions of their contracts in Brazil.

Some 40 flights are expected to bring back the Cuban doctors over the coming days. Overall, roughly 20,000 doctors tended to nearly 113 million patients as part of the "Mas Medicos," or "More Doctors," program, launched five years ago under the government of President Dilma Rousseff.

"I'm returning to my house and my homeland, but my heart is heavy because I had established a connection with people in Brazil," 33-year-old Anisley de Arguelles told AP news agency at the Havana airport. We were doing very a beautiful work that unfortunately will go unfinished, she said.

The first group of doctors returning to Cuba was received at Havana's Jose Marti airport earlier Friday by President Miguel Diaz-Canel. The president called their work a humanitarian mission that no money in the world could compensate. The response we have given Bolsonaro is an appropriate one, a courageous one that upholds the principles of the Cuban revolution, the Cuban president said.