Thousands of Cubans risk their lives living in dilapidated houses.
14ymedio, Olea Gallardo, Havana, 14 July 2025 — A dark-skinned girl with enormous, lively eyes stares into the camera in the midst of drawing. On the blank page, an figure impossible in Cuba appears: a snowman, and two others that she could not have seen: giant houses with roofs. These are some of the images shared by the Loyola Reina Center in Havana in tribute to seven-year-old Alejandra Cotilla Portales, who died along with her parents, Alejandro and Yuslaidis, in the collapse on Monte Street on Saturday .
The words of the educational center, run by the Society of Jesus, not only give a name and a face to the tragedy, but also make it even more stark. “Alejandra, the youngest member of our Drawing Workshop, always stood out for her vocation, her grace, and her extraordinary talent for the visual arts. Her creativity, confidence, and joy filled every space she shared with us with light. Her short but brilliant career was recognized in every competition she entered, and her enthusiasm was an inspiration to her classmates and teachers,” the community expressed, with “pain and dismay.”
The text highlights Yuslaidis Portales’s maternal role: “Her mother, always present and attentive, was an example of kindness and commitment to her daughter’s upbringing.” Her funeral prayer includes a condemnation of the island’s precarious housing: “We pray to the Father to change the structures that force thousands of Cubans to risk their lives living in dilapidated homes.”
While the official press and authorities—the municipal People’s Power Assembly did confirm the news on the day of the collapse—they ignore the victims, friends and acquaintances who are helping to remember them through social media. For example, Mercedes Tabio, the orthopedist who treated little Alejandra, said: “They were excellent people. The mother was very concerned about her daughter, religiously taking her to all her appointments, and the girl was very polite.”
“Alejandra, such a loving girl, and her mother, so concerned, always carrying her little girl everywhere. I feel so much pain.”
Taimy Arébalo Guerrero shares a similar sentiment: “Alejandra, such a loving girl, and her mother, so concerned, always carrying her little girl everywhere. I feel so much pain.” The woman states in her post that she met Yuslaidis for nutritional consultations during her pregnancy and explains that their children attended preschool together and attended special English classes.
Although the comments emphasize the mother’s attention to the child, the family photos on Facebook also reveal a loving father in Alejandro Cotilla, a native of Guantánamo. There are many photos of Alejandra in his arms, both smiling, and others of him embracing his partner. Two exemplary adults and a beautiful, intelligent child who flourished despite Cuba’s poverty, are no longer with us.
The collapse that killed the three, at 722 Monte Street in Old Havana, occurred while they were sleeping. Teresa, a resident of the same street, told 14ymedio about the area: “Most of the houses here have been declared uninhabitable, but people continue to live there because they have nowhere else to go.”
Just hours earlier, also in Havana, but in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, another building “under demolition” collapsed on three people, one of whom died. Both events demonstrate the state of the capital’s construction and the helplessness of Havana residents against the city’s ever-accelerating collapse.
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