Fidel Castro's American sister Juanita will not attend his funeral after accusing him in 1964 of turning Cuba into 'an enormous prison surrounded by water'

Juanita Castro will not return to Cuba for her brother Fidel Castro's funeral.

Fidel Castro died on Friday after years of failing health at age 90.

His sister, who has been in Miami for 51 years, said she grieved his death.

However, she opposed her brother's rule and stands with Cuban exiles. 

She said she does not have any plans to return to Cuba in her lifetime.

Juanita Castro, sister of dictator Fidel Castro who died on Friday at age 90, said she will not be attending her brother's funeral in Cuba.  

Despite expressing sorrow over the death of her brother, she said on Saturday she wouldn't be returning to Cuba in her lifetime. 

Juanita has been living in Miami since 1965 after accusing her brother a year earlier of turning Cuba into 'an enormous prison surrounded by water'. 

On Saturday, she said the pain of her brother's death brought old wounds to the surface. 

She also put rumors to rest that she would be heading to Cuba for the memorial and said she will remain in the United States.

'In light of the bad rumors that said I was going to go to Cuba for the funeral, I want to clarify that I have never returned to the island,



nor do I have plans to do so.

'I have fought alongside exiles, arm and arm, during their most active and intense stages of struggle in past decades, and I respect the feelings of all,' Juanita said in a statement. 

'I do not rejoice over the death of any human being, much less when that person is someone with my blood and surnames.

'As a sister of Fidel, I am experiencing the loss of a human being who shared my blood, as happened with the deaths of my siblings Ramón and Angelita,' Juanita said in a statement. 

Juanita said she's been exiled in Miami for 51 years like others who had to flee Cuba under her brother's regime.  

She said she suffered a double-edged sword of losing her connection to her family in Cuba and being rejected by exiles in Miami because she was a Castro. 

'I hope that we can find, not a way toward confrontation and hatred, but toward one that finally binds all Cubans,' she said.  

Juanita is one of four of Castro's sisters and was supportive in the late 1950s of her brother's effort to overthrow Fulgencio Batista.

However, when he insisted on giving up the family plantation, a rift was created that never healed.