Milagros Hernando Echevarría (12 January 1957 – 23 October 2017) was a Spanish diplomat.

Biography

After earning

licentiates A licentiate (abbreviated Lic.) is an academic degree present in many countries, representing different educational levels. It may be similar to a master's degree when issued by pontifical universities and other universities in Europe, Latin A ...

in Political Science and Sociology, Mila Hernando entered the diplomatic field in 1988. Her first postings were in Peru and the Czech Republic. Back in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, she held the position of advisory member of the Cabinet of the Secretary of State for Foreign Policy for the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational political and economic union of member states that are located primarily in Europe. The union has a total area of and an estimated total population of about 447million. The EU has often been des ...

. A few months later, she was appointed Cabinet Chief of the then Secretary of State for European Affairs, Ramón de Miguel. With the arrival of Rodríguez Zapatero, she was appointed General Director of Planning and Evaluation of Policies for Development at the Agency for International Cooperation, providing aid to the poor. Once again in Madrid, she held the directorship of the Department of International Policy and Security of the . Under the Rajoy government, Hernando was named ambassador to Lebanon from May 2012 to April 2017, being the first woman to occupy that position. During her stay in Lebanon, she had to handle the death of Spanish Corporal Francisco Javier Soria, who was killed by Israeli gunfire, and take charge of the diplomatic representation of Syria, whose embassy was closed at the beginning of the

civil war A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country). The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...

in that country. Suffering from cancer, she returned to Madrid, where she held the position of ambassador in the Special Mission for Mediterranean Affairs. Mila Hernando died in Madrid on 23 October 2017. A funeral was held in

Beirut Beirut, french: Beyrouth is the capital and largest city of Lebanon. , Greater Beirut has a population of 2.5 million, which makes it the third-largest city in the Levant region. The city is situated on a peninsula at the midpoint o ...

in her memory, with hundreds of people in attendance.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hernando, Mila 1957 births 2017 deaths 20th-century diplomats 21st-century diplomats Ambassadors of Spain to Lebanon Deaths from cancer in Spain People from Bilbao Spanish women ambassadors