14ymedio, Havana, 5 March 2025 — The legal organization Cubalex denounced the death of the prisoners Giovanis Ferrer Verdecia, alias El Menor, and Israel Cabrera, in the Boniato prison, in Santiago de Cuba, both of which occurred on Saturday, March 1. With these, there have been eight deaths in the same prison this year alone.
Ferrer Verdecia, 46, who was detained in detachment number 16, died of tuberculosis and kidney failure. According to data provided by Cubalex, the inmate “remained hospitalized for several days before his death and was buried last Sunday morning.” He was originally from the town of Ramón de Guaninao, in the municipality of Palma Soriano.
Cabrera was in Block 2, where inmates with low weight are imprisoned. According to Cubalex, “the exact circumstances of his death are unknown.”
The NGO says that Boniato is a detention center where “abandonment, unhealthiness and lack of medical care continue to claim lives.” One of the reasons for the deaths of prisoners is tuberculosis. This is how Osbety Girón Matos, 51, died in mid-February. The inmate was in Block 13, section 4, and he “died after being hospitalized for several days in the prisoners’ ward of the local hospital,” the organization said.
The NGO says that Boniato is a detention center where “abandonment, unhealthiness and lack of medical care continue to claim lives”
The prison authorities have quarantined the block to prevent the spread of the disease among the penal population, with little success.
“The overcrowding, lack of medical care, malnutrition and unsanitary conditions continue to put the lives of prisoners at serious risk and facilitate the spread of deadly diseases,” adds Cubalex.
The Boniato prison has been denounced by relatives of inmates for the alarming conditions in which they are kept, in addition to subjecting them to a regime of maximum severity. “The food is insufficient and inadequate. Currently they receive only rice soup or a burro banana, without regular access to a main course, which is provided to them sporadically,” the NGO stressed.
On February 1, Iraqi Nieto died from malnutrition. He was in Block 2, where the inmates with low weight were kept.
For his part, the lack of food led Giovanis Reyes Ortega to commit suicide. According to Cubalex, the conscript “had been fainting daily for almost a month due to lack of food and medical assistance. His state of extreme malnutrition led him to take his own life.”
Last December, José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), denounced the bad conditions of the Boniato prison. The opponent was informed by other prisoners of the painful situation of hunger and illness they experienced there. In 2024, 22 deaths were recorded.
Another case in Boniato was that of the inmate Oscar Leiva Caballero, who died on February 1 from a heart attack
Another case in Boniato was that of inmate Oscar Leiva Caballero, who died on February 1 from a heart attack. He was serving a 15-year sentence for a common crime and suffered a first heart attack on January 31. “Other details about the circumstances of his death and whether he received timely medical assistance are unknown,” the NGO said.
The death of Juan Antonio Singüenza Sánchez was announced on March 3. Cuban opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer denounced the horrors experienced by the 56-year-old prisoner in the dungeons. He was released in December in an alarming state of malnutrition and full of scabies from head to toe, reported La Tijera. Days later he died in Santiago de Cuba.
Between January 2022 and January 2024, at least 56 people died under state custody in Cuba, according to data documented by Cubalex. Of these cases, 34 correspond to inmates in prisons, and the main cause of death was the denial of medical care, with 19 cases registered.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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