The former member of the 5 Star Movement felt ill while carrying out a series of reports and was hospitalized in Santa Clara. The Farnesina is in contact with the Italian embassy.
Alessandro Di Battista is hospitalized in a hospital in Santa Clara, Cuba, after falling ill on the evening of Friday 28 August, while he was on the island to produce a new series of reports. According to information released in the last few hours, the former member of the 5 Star Movement arrived in hospital in serious condition after experiencing a severe headache, but at the moment no medical bulletin has been made public and both the cause of the illness and the prognosis remain unknown.
Di Battista, who turned 48 last August 4, was in Cuba to continue his journalistic work for The Daily Fact and TvLoft, as part of the reporting series The dust of the worlddedicated to the countries, conflicts and international political transformations that have long been the center of his activity outside Parliament.
The illness and hospitalization in Santa Clara
The illness appeared suddenly on Friday evening, accompanied by a strong pain in the head which made it necessary to be transferred to hospital. The former parliamentarian’s condition is described as serious by informed sources, although an official diagnosis or more precise information on the tests to which he would have been subjected are not yet available.
In the first hours following the spread of the news, a certain confusion had also arisen at the location of the hospitalization. Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani had initially indicated a hospital in Havana, later correcting his message and specifying that Di Battista is instead in Santa Clara, a city located about 300 kilometers east of the Cuban capital.
The last update published by Di Battista on social media dates back to the hours before his hospitalization, when he shared on Instagram the story of a journalist who is in Gaza. From that moment on, no other messages appeared on his profiles, while in Italy apprehension about his condition rapidly grew.
Tajani: «The Farnesina will guarantee all the necessary assistance»
The Foreign Minister announced that he had been in contact with the Italian embassy in Cuba since the night to directly follow the evolution of the clinical picture and ensure the support of the Italian authorities. “I pray for his health,” Tajani wrote, adding that the ministry will provide Di Battista and his family with all the necessary assistance.
The note from the 5 Star Movement was also immediate, expressing “great apprehension” and rallying around the ex-MP’s family, hoping to receive positive updates soon. Although Di Battista left the Movement in 2021 after a deep political break, his name continues to be linked in an almost inseparable way to the history of its origins and to the season of the great five-star electoral rise.
Messages of sympathy also arrived from representatives of the other parties. Alfredo Antoniozzi, deputy group leader of the Brothers of Italy in the Chamber, expressed his solidarity with words that overcome political opposition: “We expect him soon, to criticize us, to attack us”, he wrote, saying he is certain that Di Battista will be able to recover.
From the 5 Star Movement to international reports
Having joined the 5 Star Movement in 2009, Di Battista was elected deputy in 2013, quickly becoming one of the most recognizable faces of the formation founded by Beppe Grillo and Gianroberto Casaleggio. In 2014 he joined the directorate together with Luigi Di Maio, Roberto Fico, Carla Ruocco and Carlo Sibilia, playing a central role in the communication and political growth of the Movement.
In 2017 he announced his decision not to run again in the subsequent political elections, concluding his parliamentary experience in 2018 but continuing to intervene in the public debate. The definitive separation from the M5S came in February 2021, when it opposed the Five Star Movement’s choice to support the government led by Mario Draghi; since 2023 he has been vice-president of the Schierarsi association, through which he has continued his political and civil commitment.
At the same time, Di Battista returned to dedicating himself to travel, writing and reportage, resuming a path that began even before entering Parliament, when he had worked in Guatemala as part of international cooperation projects. At the moment, however, all attention remains focused on his health conditions, waiting for more precise information to arrive from the Santa Clara hospital or the Farnesina.
