HAVANA (AP) — Cuban officials on Monday lowered flags before dawn to mourn 32 security officers they say were killed in the U.S. weekend strike in Venezuela, the island nation’s closest ally, as residents here wonder what the capture of President Nicolas Maduro means for their future.

The two governments are so close that Cuban soldiers and security agents were often the Venezuelan president’s bodyguards, and Venezuela’s petroleum has kept the economically ailing island limping along for years. Cuban authorities over the weekend said the 32 had been killed in the surprise attack but have given no further details.

The Trump administration has warned outright that toppling Maduro will help advance another decades-long goal: Dealing a blow to the Cuban government. Severing Cuba from Venezuela could have disastrous consequences for its leaders, who on Saturday called for the international community to stand up to “state terrorism.”

On Saturday, Trump said the ailing Cuban economy will be further battered by Maduro’s ouster.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

Many observers say Cuba, an island of about 10 million people, exerted a remarkable degree of influence over Venezuela, an oil-rich nation with three times as many people. At the same time, Cubans have long been tormented by constant blackouts and shortages of basic foods. And after the attack, they woke to the once-unimaginable possibility of an even grimmer future.

“I can’t talk. I have no words,” 75-year-old Berta Luz Sierra Molina said as she sobbed and placed a hand over her face.

Even though 63-year-old Regina Mendez is too old to join the Cuban military, she said that “we have to stand strong.”

“Give me a rifle, and I’ll go fight,” Mendez said.

Maduro’s government was shipping an average of 35,000 barrels of oil daily over the last three months, about a quarter of total demand, said Jorge Pinon, a Cuban energy expert at the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute.