In 1983, pro-Communist forces led a coup in the Caribbean island of Grenada. After learning that Cuban construction workers were building an airfield on Grenada, Reagan dispatched approximately 5,000 U.S. soldiers to invade Grenada. After two days of fighting that resulted in the deaths of nineteen Americans, forty-five Grenadans, and fifty-nine Cubans, the left-wing government of Grenada was overthrown. While the invasion enjoyed public support in the United States and Grenada it was criticized by the United Kingdom, Canada and the United Nations General Assembly as "a flagrant violation of international law".