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South Africa Orders Suspension of Controversial Agreement with Cuba for the Maintenance of Its Military Equipment

The official end date is still unknown, as courses that have already begun will be completed, said a senior military officer

South African military personnel alongside Cuban engineers and technicians from Project Kgala. / defenceweb.co.za

14ymedio, Madrid, 15 October 2026 / The South African Army will finally halt Project Kgala, a controversial military cooperation program with Cuba that began in January 2025 and on which some 279 million rand, equivalent to 16.9 million US dollars, has already been spent irregularly. The agreement had been hanging by a thread since South Africa’s Auditor General declared it invalid four months ago.

The news was announced by the local press this Thursday, which quotes a high-ranking officer in the South African National Defence Force (SANDF), Navy Lieutenant James Matshimane. This officer, the Army’s new head of military policy, strategy and planning, told Parliament that “an instruction has already been issued” to stop the Project, in which, in his own words, 119 Cubans have taken part.

With such a fleeting statement, Matshimane left questions unanswered, such as the date for the definitive end of the cooperation, who the order came from, or whether payments to the island will continue while the courses already underway, which “will be allowed to conclude,” are completed.

Project Kgala, which replaced Project Thusano almost two years ago, brings Cuban engineers and technicians to South Africa to help the SANDF with the maintenance and repair of military vehicles, as well as air and naval transport equipment. continue reading

The agreement had been hanging by a thread since South Africa’s Auditor General declared it invalid four months ago

The report produced by the Auditor General’s office last May documented in detail what both agreements have involved. In the 2024-2025 period alone, more than 1.5 million dollars was spent on the Cuban technicians’ upkeep, accommodation, travel and operating costs. The Army documented that during the Thusano years (2021-2024), 18,498 “job cards” – official documents certifying that a task has been carried out – were issued, including more than 10,210 interventions on Army vehicles, 1,067 on aircraft and Air Force (SAAF) vehicles, 107 in the Navy and 4,505 operational and medical interventions in the Military Health Service (SAMHS).

In the little less than a year that it had been in force when the audit was carried out, Kgala had completed 2,502 work orders, with 1,198 component repairs for the Army, 418 on vehicles and aircraft, 196 interventions in the Navy and 659 medical tasks for SAMHS. Although the report considered the volume of work credited to be considerable, that did not justify how the agreement had been reached.

According to the Office of the Chief State Law Adviser, the pact with Cuba bypassed the country’s public procurement rules, which require a tender or, failing that, a special permit (an exemption request) from the Treasury. However, the Department of Defence signed directly with the Cuban side under a memorandum between the two countries. In addition, the program had spent almost a million dollars at the time it was examined, which, lacking a permit, was irregular expenditure. Moreover, as the total value of the agreement was 11 million dollars, that entire amount – not yet delivered – was likewise considered “irregular.”

The military leadership defended the viability of the agreement at the time. Vice Admiral David Mkhonto, the SANDF’s Chief of Logistics, explained to the committee that the cooperation arose from a bilateral government-to-government Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) and that, although it should have been processed by requesting the exemption, it was the right choice.

“The studies revealed excessive costs, prolonged response times and capacity limitations in the domestic industry. Cuban collaboration represented the most cost-effective, sustainable and operationally viable option for restoring the core mission equipment,” Mkhonto said, adding that the Department is already working on an internal delegation framework and oversight mechanisms to correct the irregularities.

The halt now acknowledged by the Army does not necessarily guarantee that South Africa will do without the Cubans. Having already renamed Thusano in 2025, after it had been in the eye of the storm, it could now adjust – and even rename the agreement once again – in order to keep the personnel.

Having already renamed Thusano in 2025, after it had been in the eye of the storm, it could now adjust – and even rename the agreement once again – in order to keep the personnel

Cooperation between Cuba and South Africa, which dates back to the days of Nelson Mandela and Fidel Castro, has accumulated controversial episodes. Among the best-known cases is the sale of Heberon Alfa R for the coronavirus crisis, purchased by Defence – when, at the start of covid-19, it believed it was a bacteriological weapon – without the required authorization from the Health Department. In that operation alone, the island pocketed almost two million dollars, which could have been 17 if the purchase had been completed.

The collaboration also includes the exchange of doctors or engineers between the two countries, which has led to further questionable spending, as well as more than generous donations, including one of 3 million dollars that was ultimately annulled by the courts of the African country in 2023.

Last September a new controversy broke out, when the military trade union South African National Defence Union demanded an investigation into all the details of the complaint by a group of 38 officers who were training on the island and were allegedly pressured to donate money from their salaries to the Cuban side. The donations were to be recorded on a list, next to each officer’s name, with the suggested amount, which, although voluntary, was expected to come to about 940 dollars for officers and at least 188 dollars for those of lower rank.

This month there has also been a flood of complaints from South African students who are doing or completing their studies on the island, in some cases because of the lack of opportunities their country offers them on their return – since, after paying for their training on the island, it has no money to hire them – and in others because of the poor conditions they face in their daily lives as residents in Cuba.

Translated by GH

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At the Matanzas Pediatric Hospital, There’s Not Even Anyone to Give an Injection

The shortage of nurses leaves children and their families waiting for hours in a hospital hit by the exodus of health workers

La falta de personal sanitario se ha convertido en uno de los agujeros más visibles del sistema de salud cubano. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Julio César Contreras, Havana, October 15, 2026 / In the emergency room of the Eliseo Noel Caamaño Pediatric Hospital, health workers can hardly be seen moving back and forth anymore. Along the hallway that leads to the inpatient wards, every now and then someone in a white coat comes out of a consulting room, closes the door and hurries off to avoid questions. On the metal benches sit children and their relatives, looking toward the nursing station and waiting for an employee who, they are told, has gone for a snack.

Standing in front of that door, Yanelis has less patience. Her four-year-old son needs an injection to bring down a persistent fever. “First I had to send someone to buy the acetaminophen on the street, because there isn’t any in here. The doctor saw us more than an hour ago and we still haven’t been able to get it done because the nurse has disappeared,” she tells 14ymedio. The young woman threatens to go to the hospital administration.

Her son needs an injection to bring down a persistent fever / 14ymedio

The shortage of health personnel has become one of the most visible holes in the Cuban health system. In December 2024, even a commission of deputies that toured 39 municipalities in the 15 provinces acknowledged that the departure of professionals to other sectors and the migratory stampede had turned the worker deficit into one of the most alarming problems in Public Health. Years earlier, the authorities themselves had admitted that professionals and technicians were leaving for other economic activities, inside and outside the country. The deficit has only grown worse.

At the Matanzas Pediatric Hospital, that statistic takes on real faces. A young mother wipes the sweat from her daughter’s face with a handkerchief. At 8:30 in the morning she asked who was last in line for injections. It is now past ten, and she has seen elderly people selling roasted peanuts and medical students chatting openly about the lack of professors at the University of Medical Sciences pass through the emergency room, but not a single nurse has entered the nursing station. continue reading

“It’s hard to believe that in this hospital there isn’t a nurse to be found to give an injection,” she protests. The syringe and the amoxicillin are still in her bag when the antibiotic should already be taking effect in the girl’s body. What is missing is something that used to be taken for granted: the skilled hand to administer it.

A child bursts into tears and the impatience grows. The receptionist finally looks up from her phone and says someone has already gone to fetch the nurse. Then she offers an explanation that causes more worry than relief: “She’s been working alone for 72 hours and you have to understand that she gets tired, because she’s a human being.” The employee thanks God that no emergency has come in.

Since the child cannot climb stairs because he is in a wheelchair, she has had to leave him alone while she searches the hospital. / 14ymedio

That remark sums up the problem. It is not just a matter of missing medicines, broken equipment or run-down buildings. In a system that for decades turned its abundance of white coats into a propaganda banner, there is now also a shortage of people who know how to give an injection, take a blood pressure reading or prepare a nebulizer. Last July, several health workers consulted by 14ymedio described a picture of low salaries, a lack of resources and official statistics that, according to their complaints, was driving many to leave the sector.

Another mother walks the second floor of the pediatric hospital looking for help. “I couldn’t find anyone who could see us,” she says. Since her son cannot climb stairs because he is in a wheelchair, she has had to leave him alone while she searches the hospital. She is already thinking of another solution: tracking down a nurse she knows to come to her house. “I’ll surely have to pay him something, but that’s better than spending the week the treatment lasts chasing after these people.”

A man comes in carrying a little girl and asks who is last in line for injections. He has come from the polyclinic assigned to him, where he found a similar situation. He sits down and keeps his eyes fixed on a door, waiting for someone in a white coat to appear.

Translated by GH

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The U.S. Coast Guard Intercepts and Repatriates Four Fishermen and Two Cuban Rafters

Another of the migrants had to be taken ashore to receive specialized medical care.

The crew of the Miami Air Station spotted a disabled Cuban fishing boat with four people aboard. / X/@USCGSoutheast

14ymedio, Havana, October 14, 2026 – Two Cuban rafters and four fishermen were repatriated this Tuesday by the U.S. Coast Guard aboard the vessel Isaac Mayo. The return of these people took place one day after a man was found on pieces of polystyrene foam tied together with cords and wood, 16 miles from Key Biscayne.

According to official data, last Thursday, the crew of an HC-144 Ocean Sentry patrol aircraft spotted what “the U.S. Coast Guard described as a makeshift vessel southwest of Salt Cay,” an uninhabited island in the Bahamas located between Cuba and South Florida.

The authorities specified that three people were assisted by the crew of the Raymond Evans. However, one of the rafters “had to be taken to the mainland for a specialized medical evaluation,” without specifying what kind.

U.S. authorities reiterated their usual warning to Cubans: “Anyone attempting to enter the United States illegally by sea will be intercepted and repatriated to their country of origin.” They also recalled the surveillance operations along all maritime routes into the country to deter illegal migration.

Last Sunday, during one of these operations, the crew of the Miami Air Station spotted a disabled Cuban fishing boat with four people aboard, drifting about 46 miles southeast of Key West. The fishermen were transferred aboard the vessel Isaac Mayo. continue reading

U.S. authorities reiterated their usual warning to Cubans: “Anyone attempting to enter the United States illegally by sea will be intercepted and repatriated to their country of origin”

The commander of the Coast Guard Air Station in Miami, Aarón Ortenzio, emphasized that “these cases demonstrate the Coast Guard’s commitment to preventing illegal maritime entry and responding to the needs of mariners in distress.”

Meanwhile, the man who reached Florida on pieces of polystyrene foam is awaiting his return to the Island. His relatives identified him as Enrique René Reyes Martínez. According to Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, a journalist living in exile in the United States, he is “a fisherman from Santiago, born in the Los Cangrejitos neighborhood and residing in Havana.”

Reyes Martínez was reported missing last Thursday. His cousin, Reynier Estiu Álvarez, explained that the man set out from Cojímar Beach to fish despite unfavorable conditions.

Despite these arrivals, Sebastian Arcos, director of the Institute for Cuban Studies at Florida International University, sees no indication that rafters will try to turn the strait into a viable route again in the short term.

“Given the recent drastic shift in policy toward Cuba compared with previous administrations, Havana will likely want to avoid an uncontrolled wave of refugees like those of 1980 or 1994, since that could well provoke a harsh reaction from the Donald Trump Administration,” he told the Miami Herald.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Cuban Foreign Ministry Deeply Concerned About U.S. Campaign Against Resolution on the Embargo at the UN

The deputy foreign minister accuses Marco Rubio of “intimidating, blackmailing, and promising carrots to governments in every corner of the world.”

The Cuban regime installed a screen on the steps of the University of Havana to follow the 2019 vote. / EFE. / EFE

14ymedio, Madrid, October 15, 2026 / Part of the exile community in Miami joined the U.S. diplomatic push on Wednesday to gather support against the annual resolution that the Cuban regime presents at the UN calling for an end to the “blockade.” Opposition organizations, supported by activists and former political prisoners, presented an initiative in the city called Appeal by the Cuban Pro-Democracy Opposition to the Governments of the Free and Democratic World, in which they call for a vote against the Castro regime’s proposal.

“For decades, the Cuban communist regime has used this annual vote to portray itself internationally as the victim of foreign aggression and to divert attention from its own responsibility for the profound political, economic, social, and humanitarian crisis our country is suffering,” the text states.

The document attempts to disprove the existence of a U.S. blockade and accuses the Cuban regime of having disastrously managed the flows of money and raw materials it received for decades from the Soviet Union and Venezuela. It also draws on bilateral trade figures between Havana and Washington, authorized through exemptions or for the private sector, depending on the case, to deny that restrictions exist. It specifically cites fuel shipments, which have been permitted exclusively from the United States since this January and which reached a value of $231.74 million over eight months. continue reading

“For decades, the Cuban communist regime has used this annual vote to portray itself internationally as the victim of foreign aggression and to divert attention from its own responsibility”

Another of the arguments put forward by the exile community is the humanitarian aid that the State Department has coordinated this year with the Catholic Church for distribution throughout the Island. This donation began with an allocation of $9 million promised after Hurricane Melissa struck in October 2025 and continued with another $100 million amid the current crisis. The regime has accepted both, while accusing Washington of “hypocrisy,” blaming it for “applying draconian coercive measures” while announcing “soup and cans of food for a few.”

The text’s promoters — among whom José Daniel Ferrer stands out, having reported that nearly 1,000 signatures of support had been collected by Wednesday — are calling for the sanctions policy against Cuba’s current leaders to continue while humanitarian aid outside government channels is increased. But their main focus is the appeal to the international community to vote against the resolution presented by Cuba on October 28, following its submission to the General Assembly between the 27th and that same day.

“Do not give the Cuban regime political backing that it can subsequently use for propaganda and to conceal the absence of freedoms within Cuba,” the document states. It explicitly names the governments of the European Union, the United Kingdom, Canada, Norway, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Latin American democracies, urging them to “vote against (…) or, at the very least, abstain.”

The appeal aligns with the message Marco Rubio conveyed to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Tuesday during a telephone call in which, among other matters, he asked for his country to vote against the Cuban resolution. According to the secretary of state, “the Cuban regime will not carry out the reforms the people deserve as long as it believes the international community is on its side.”

Just one day earlier, Rubio had spoken with Abelardo De la Espriella, and although the content of that conversation is unknown, everything indicates that he asked his new regional partner for support on the designated date.

These developments have prompted a reaction from the Cuban regime, which issued a statement on Wednesday through its foreign minister, Bruno Rodríguez. “The U.S. Secretary of State, nervous and anxious in the face of yet another defeat at the United Nations, is pressuring and blackmailing heads of state and government in several countries to change their votes against the blockade in the UN General Assembly,” he wrote on his X account.

“With his repeated lies and new actions, he is trying to silence the act of collective punishment he is committing against the Cuban people and make the rest of the international community complicit in this barbarity,” he added in his post.

“With his repeated lies and new actions, he is trying to silence the act of collective punishment he is committing against the Cuban people and make the rest of the international community complicit in this barbarity”

Deputy Foreign Minister Carlos Fernández de Cossío went even further, lamenting that, “in the year of the greatest intensification of the economic war,” the United States was seeking to “blame the victim of aggression, discredit the victim, and thereby attempt to change a position that the international community has historically and unmistakably maintained in rejecting the economic blockade.” He also added that Rubio “is going from country to country and calling heads of government in a desperate effort to intimidate, blackmail, and promise carrots to governments in every corner of the world.”

At the end of September, a document obtained by the Associated Press and confirmed by several officials to the news agency revealed that the U.S. State Department had plans to impose “stricter controls” on Cuban officials traveling to the United Nations for the resolution vote. However, this has no practical implications, since Havana’s permanent delegation in New York is one of the largest, with 47 officials, according to the NGO Archivo Cuba.

The Cuban regime has historically secured the Assembly’s support for this resolution. Its best year was 2016, when it received no votes against it and the text passed with just two abstentions, from the United States and Israel, which have always voted the same way. Since then, although support has remained overwhelming, the loss of votes has been noticeable. In 2025, the proposal passed with 165 votes in favor, seven against, and twelve abstentions, the worst result to date. This year’s outcome will almost certainly be much worse.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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With the Entry into Force of the New Housing Law, the Confiscation of Emigrants’ Homes Comes to an End

As announced in June, Cubans will be allowed to own two homes, mortgage financing is authorized, and the sector is opened to private and foreign capital.

The legislation also provides for construction through the population’s own efforts. / Cubadebate

14ymedio, Madrid, October 14, 2026 / The long-awaited new Housing Law, finally published this Wednesday in the Official Gazette, will enter into force sooner than planned in the draft legislation released four months ago. The final text thus reduces the period before the regulations take effect from 90 days to seven, something that has also occurred with the most recent decrees approved, demonstrating the urgency the Government wants to bring to its desperate measures to revive the economy.

For the most part, the legal document differs little from the version announced last June, which, among other provisions, eliminated the State’s confiscation of property belonging to emigrants, opened the sector to private capital, foreign investors, and mortgage financing, and allowed Cubans to own up to two homes, in addition to a “vacation or summer home.”

In this regard, the law states that if it is established that the limit on property ownership has been exceeded, the Municipal Housing Directorate may order the loss of the last home acquired. continue reading

Among its provisions, the law recognizes the participation of different forms of management, including micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (mipymes), real estate companies, housing cooperatives, and microbrigades

The new framework also retains the possibility of the municipal administration asking a court to revoke the rights to an abandoned home that has been declared structurally derelict.

The owner or holder is required to take measures to restore its use value; if they fail to do so, the Housing Directorate may petition the courts to make the property available for subsequent allocation.

This authority, therefore, does not translate into an automatic loss of ownership: the procedure provided for requires the intervention of the competent court. Both the draft and the final law provide for this possibility.

What has been expanded compared with the June text is the overall framework, providing details covering the construction, financing, distribution, use, maintenance, access to, and transfer of homes.

Among its provisions, the law recognizes the participation of different forms of management, including micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (mipymes), real estate companies, housing cooperatives, and microbrigades. The legislation also provides for construction through the population’s own efforts.

The law also maintains State intervention in housing policy and the protection of certain population groups in accessing housing. The participation of other economic actors is incorporated into this framework without eliminating the administrative powers held by public agencies.

The approved legislation retains this requirement but adds a clarification regarding the 15-year period: according to the new Article 57, the period begins with the State’s first allocation of the home

The publication of the law is accompanied by three Council of Ministers decrees: Decree 176/2026, which establishes the general regulations for the Housing Law; Decree 177/2026, concerning condominium ownership; and Decree 178/2026, which regulates housing cooperatives. The Official Gazette also includes two resolutions issued by the National Institute of Territorial Planning and Urbanism.

Unlike the June draft, the final legislation also specifies how the 15-year period is calculated for certain subsidized homes subject to repayment obligations and the State’s preferential right to purchase. The original draft established that the right of first refusal and repurchase, along with other obligations related to these homes, had to be recorded in the constitutive title and registered in the Central Registry of Real Estate Property.

The approved legislation retains this requirement but adds a clarification regarding the 15-year period: according to the new Article 57, the period begins with the State’s first allocation of the home. Subsequent transfers do not restart the period, and once the 15 years have elapsed, the holder is released from the obligations to repay the subsidy and from the State’s preferential right to purchase.

The amendment thus clarifies an issue that the draft did not specify in that article: the point at which the period begins to run and the effects of subsequent transfers. It also prevents each change of ownership from restarting the clock.

Regarding the sale price, the law establishes that it is agreed upon by the parties and that the transfer is formalized before a notary, subject to the exceptions established for homes allocated by the State. The tax regime for these transactions is also modified: the taxable base for the sale becomes the transfer price, provided that it is equal to or greater than the cadastral value.

The regulations also establish a deadline for regularizing certain longstanding situations. Thus, “legitimate occupants, usufruct holders who pay for their use, and certain tenants or their heirs” have five years from the law’s entry into force to request the transfer of ownership. If they fail to do so within this period, they will become tenants of a State-owned home.

Because the State remains, in any case, a key player in the matter.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Democratic Candidate in Florida Estimates That 13,000 Cubans Were Deported During Trump’s Two Terms

Senate candidate Angie Nixon calls the president the “deporter-in-chief”

Image of the deportation flight to Cuba from the US published by the Ministry of the Interior. / X/@minint_cuba

14ymedio, Madrid, October 13, 2026 / Ready to fight for the Cuban vote, despite the challenge this initially poses, the Democratic candidate for the US Senate from Florida, Angie Nixon, recalled in a televised appearance this Monday the high number of people from the island who have been deported during the two Administrations of the current US president. “Donald Trump is the deporter-in-chief,” she said on CBS News Miami’s Facing South Florida program.

Nixon lamented that 13,000 Cubans have been deported during the time Trump has been in office, despite his having received strong support at the polls from Cuban Americans. The figures come from adding together different sources. On the one hand, the number of deportees during the Republican’s first term is official and comes from the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, which puts it at about 3,400 Cubans. There is, for now, no corresponding estimate for this second term, but Human Rights Watch calculates that there are around 8,500 Cubans. continue reading

In addition, there are those sent specifically to Mexico, some 4,400 Cubans according to the report published in May of this year by the same organization

In addition, there are those sent specifically to Mexico, some 4,400 Cubans according to the report published in May of this year by the same organization. In that 66-page document, the NGO lamented that 26% had no criminal record whatsoever and pointed out that only 16% of those who did have one had committed a serious or violent crime. A large majority had lived in the US for decades, and their expulsion to Mexico had left them highly vulnerable, as they suddenly found themselves in a foreign country, without rights and without access to housing or medicine.

In total, 18,000 people were deported between January 2025 and March 2026, of whom 13,000 ended up in that country. The figure shows that more than a third of those expelled were Cuban, a nationality that for decades has not exactly been the target of US immigration authorities, which had protected exiles from the island.

Nixon lamented that all of this has changed under the Trump Administration, which has also put an end to the specific programs for receiving the Cubans who left en masse from 2022 onward due to a combination of factors that included socioeconomic deterioration, the intensification of repression after 11J [the island-wide anti-government protests of July 11, 2021], and the reopening of borders once the worst of the pandemic had passed. The Democrat neglected to mention that Barack Obama was the president who, in the final days of his term, in January 2017, eliminated the “wet foot, dry foot” policy, which allowed Cuban rafters to remain in the US.

The cancellation of the parole program – which allowed Cuban, Haitian, Nicaraguan, and Venezuelan migrants to come to the US provided they were sponsored by a resident of the country – went so far as to reach the Supreme Court, where it was definitively revoked in May 2025, ending the permits of more than half a million people.

Deportations of Cubans had been minimal not only because of the immigration exceptions that applied to exiles from the island, but also because of the regime’s opposition to accepting the return of citizens who had left the country. That policy changed when, in April 2023, the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel and the Joe Biden Administration agreed to resume deportation flights operated by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), but from that date until December 2024 the number of Cubans returned to the island from the US amounted to approximately between 1,000 and 1,200.

Since then, the number is unknown, and although most months a charter flight arrives in Cuba with around a hundred people, Washington has found other ways to rid itself of the Cubans that Havana refuses to take back. One of them – apart from the Mexican route – is sending them to third countries, including some in Africa.

The immigration debate promises to be at the center of the debates in the state of Florida, although the polls continue to give the Republicans the advantage. In the Senate race, Republican Ashley Moody has around 49% of the vote averaging most polls, while Nixon is at around 43% using the same method.

Translated by GH

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State Security Detains Journalist Yunia Figueredo and Threatens to Prevent Her Daughter’s Surgery

There have been at least 22 repressive incidents against the family since April 2025, according to Iclep.

14ymedio, Havana, October 13, 2026 / Independent journalist Yunia Figueredo reported this Monday that she and her husband, fellow journalist Frank Correa, were detained in the morning by State Security agents and taken to Villa Marista, in Havana, where they remained separated for several hours. “They kept us there until 2:30 in the afternoon. It was extremely horrible,” she said on Facebook.

The arrest kept the couple away from home for practically the entire day. Figueredo said they were not able to return home until five in the afternoon because of transportation difficulties, while their two daughters, one a university student and the other a 14-year-old minor, remained alone at home.

Regarding the detention, on Tuesday the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (Iclep) said that Figueredo had been threatened by a State Security officer identified as Hilda during the interrogation to which she was subjected. During the questioning, the agents referred to a surgical procedure her younger daughter needs: “She will never be able to have the operation if you continue persisting in counterrevolutionary activities.” The officer also told her that the older daughter’s continued enrollment at the university would be at risk.

The journalist remained in police custody for approximately five and a half hours, without access to a bathroom or drinking water. Meanwhile, her husband reported that he had been locked in a cell for more than two hours and had also received threats of travel restrictions and pressure to abandon journalism and leave the country. continue reading

Her husband reported that he had been locked in a cell for more than two hours and had also received threats of travel restrictions

Iclep emphasized that this was not an isolated incident, since there has been “a pattern of threats, detentions, and harassment against the Correa-Figueredo family since last year, including a house arrest perimeter in September that prevented them from leaving their home,” as happened to other activists and journalists, including Yoani Sánchez, director of 14ymedio, and her husband, journalist Reinaldo Escobar.

In early September, Iclep requested precautionary measures before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to protect the couple and their two daughters. According to the institute, there have been at least 22 repressive incidents against the family since April 2025.

The Alas Tensas Gender Observatory [also see ‘OGAT’] also condemned the authorities’ harassment of the couple. In particular, it raised concerns about “the minors, whose well-being and protection must be guaranteed by the Cuban authorities.”

The journalist was also detained in Jaimanitas, in Havana’s Playa municipality, after participating in one of the pot-banging protests

Last March, the journalist was also detained in Jaimanitas, in Havana’s Playa municipality, after participating in one of the pot-banging protests in the capital against the blackouts.

At the time, her husband said the arrest took place at around 5 p.m., amid a police operation in the neighborhood. “The detention took place in front of their daughters and during a blackout.” During the arrest, the agents threw the journalist’s phone to the ground.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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September Ends with Four Deaths and 79 Rights Violations in Cuban Prisons

Almost half of last month’s repressive events affected people deprived of their liberty, “some of whom protested inside the detention centers”

Detail of a meal in a Cuban prison. / PD

EFE (via 14ymedio) Havana, October 13, 2026 / The NGO Cuban Prisons Documentation Center (CDPC) recorded 79 rights violations against incarcerated people and four inmate deaths in September, according to its recent report on that period.

The CDPC – based in Mexico – said it documented complaints of rights violations in 34 prisons, forced labor camps and criminal investigation centers across 12 Cuban provinces and the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud.

The provinces of Camagüey, Havana and Mayabeque accounted for most of the records, while the penitentiary facilities most frequently named in complaints were Kilo 8 and Kilo 7 (Camagüey) and Quivicán (Mayabeque), the report states.

Among the most frequent complaints, it recorded denial of medical care (27), state of health (26), food (19), restrictions on communication (15) and transfers (9). continue reading

Among the most frequent complaints, it recorded denial of medical care (27), state of health (26), food (19), restrictions on communication (15) and transfers (9)

Regarding the deaths, the report states that political prisoner Florentino Morono Torres, held in the Las Tunas provincial prison, died on September 20 at the Dr. Ernesto Guevara General Teaching Hospital, two days after suffering a heart attack in his cell without receiving timely medical care.

It also reports that common prisoner Reinier Ramírez Domínguez died at the Calixto García Hospital in Havana, 17 days after receiving a medical release from prison [licencia extrapenal], “when his health was already severely compromised due to deficient medical care in prison.”

To these it adds two other inmates in the Mar Verde prison, in the province of Santiago de Cuba, whose deaths have been attributed to “lack of food and severe malnutrition.”

In this update on the situation in Cuban prisons, the NGO reported that 72 people in prison (4 women and 68 men) were identified as affected by some of the documented violations.

Among them, it cites independent journalist Henry Constantín, imprisoned in Camagüey, and political prisoners Roberto Pérez Fonseca and Vladimir Castillo Llanes (both in Quivicán) and Ediolvis Marín Mora (Kilo 7) as those who accumulated the most incidents of this kind last September.

The NGO indicated that 23 of the complaints collected referred to situations affecting the entire prison population of certain facilities.

To these it adds two other inmates in the Mar Verde prison, in the province of Santiago de Cuba, whose deaths have been attributed to “lack of food and severe malnutrition”

It also noted that people detained for political reasons and those suffering from chronic or infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, diabetes, asthma and psoriasis, as well as those living with HIV, were “the most frequent victims,” according to its observations.

The report also includes complaints about retaliatory measures such as suspension of visits and phone calls, confinement in punishment cells and beatings inflicted on prisoners who protest against prison conditions.

The CDPC stressed that the information listed in its report represents “an underreporting of the actual events and victims.”

It further explained that complete documentation is impossible due to “the systematic opacity of the Cuban regime, which refuses to make official information about its prison system transparent, prevents independent observers from accessing prisons and criminalizes the work of documenting human rights violations in these spaces.”

Incommunicado detention “reached its highest level of the year; for about a week, relatives of prisoners in dozens of centers were unable to communicate with them and were left without news”

Meanwhile, the legal advisory center Cubalex also documented that, last September, acts of repression in the country were concentrated in prisons. In a report published this Tuesday, the NGO notes that almost half of the events affected people deprived of their liberty, “some of whom protested inside the detention centers, even with hunger and thirst strikes.”

It also indicated that incommunicado detention “reached its highest level of the year; for about a week, relatives of prisoners in dozens of centers were unable to communicate with them and were left without news.”

It also noted that last month exceeded August by 18 repressive events, despite the decrease in protests compared to the previous month. These events added up to 606 incidents of harassment, since a single event can involve several types of incident.

As for the provinces where the repressive acts were recorded, Cubalex reports that Havana accounted for 38% of the events, followed by Camagüey (15%) and Santiago de Cuba (6%). “The absence of documented events on Isla de la Juventud may reflect underreporting,” the organization states in the document.

Translated by GH.

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Illegal Gold Mining in Las Tunas, Cuba, “Has Become a Public Health Problem”

The official press points to the use of an “extremely toxic” mercury-based process, with neurodegenerative consequences as well as cardiovascular and kidney damage

Illegal miners wash the soil, add mercury to trap the gold particles and then burn the amalgam. With the heat, the mercury evaporates, leaving behind the gold nuggets. / Periódico 26

14ymedio, Madrid, October 12, 2026 /The warning comes neither from a non-governmental organization nor from the independent press, but from the pro-government outlet Periódico 26: the mercury used in illegal gold extraction in Las Tunas “has become a public health problem of a magnitude that is beginning to be worrying.” In a report published on Saturday, the provincial newspaper asserts that cases of neurological, kidney and psychiatric illnesses in the municipality of Jobabo and the neighboring communities of La Guásima and Jobabito are alarming, at three times the national rate.

According to a medical specialist in toxicology, Alejandro Mestre Barroso, in the illegal gold mining carried out in the region, workers resort to a technique known as “asobe,” which consists of using elemental mercury – the kind used in thermometers, which is in principle harmless – to amalgamate the metal. The procedure is rudimentary: they wash the soil, add mercury to trap the gold particles and then burn the amalgam. With the heat, the mercury evaporates, leaving behind the gold nuggets.

However, the doctor warns, this evaporation turns elemental mercury into inorganic mercury, which is “extremely toxic.” Added to this is the mercury released while the soil is washed, which ends up in lagoons and rivers, where microorganisms transform it into an even more lethal substance. continue reading

Jobabo, he asserts, has one of the highest rates of kidney patients in the province, as well as high rates of psychiatric conditions

The expert tells Periódico 26 that “the main target organ is the central nervous system,” and that the consequences can include “neurodegenerative complications” and “cardiovascular and kidney damage, with short-, medium- and long-term after-effects.” Jobabo, he asserts, has one of the highest rates of kidney patients in the province, as well as high rates of psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia, paranoid disorders and depressive disorders.

The first alarm bell rang in 2024. At that time, the Jobabo Hospital recorded a case of “rare Parkinson’s.” “After examining the patient and looking into his medical history,” the report continues, “doctors discovered that he was a worker at the illegal gold mine.” From then on, the authorities became aware of how widespread this informal practice was.

Since then, Dr. Mestre Barroso asserts, they have treated more than 25 patients. And the specialist says: “If we look at the national statistics, this figure is three times higher.” He also raises the alarm about the age of the patients: “We are receiving young people, aged 25 to 30, with acute kidney failure due to mercury complications.”

Those affected, he stresses, are increasingly young, “aged between 18 and 25” and “of both sexes.”

According to Periódico 26, four alerts have been issued since that first case: one in 2024, two in 2025 and another this year. In 2025, an operation was even carried out in Jobabo that ended with eight arrests. The official press also reported on this, stating that “power plants and electric generators, turbines for pumping water and chipijamas” were seized from them, as well as “types of electric demolition hammer or electric pick, used to crush, chip, excavate and cut concrete, ensuring constant chiseling and high productivity; and a trómer, a type of homemade mill for crushing stones, at the end of which process gold dust is obtained.”

The growing crackdown has done little good: “The activity no longer seems to be limited to Jobabo; there are now reportedly operations in El Cornito, in La Guásima,” the report states. And it does not concern only the local population, but also residents of other municipalities.

Last August, in Villa Clara, during a dispute, two clandestine gold miners were attacked by a third man, who killed one of them, Juan Luis Ávila, and seriously wounded the other, his brother, Lázaro Luis Ávila.

The incident took place in the village of Guaracabuya, in the municipality of Placetas, where there has been activity linked to illegal gold extraction for years. For decades, the Descanso mine was Cuba’s only underground deposit and supplied the Placetas Mining Production Basic Business Unit, but it was officially closed in 2019, when its concession came to an end. The official press reported at the time that the reasons were “the danger, the cost of operations and the slow pace of extraction.”

Since then, clandestine mining has continued to predominate in the area.

Translated by GH.

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Many Cuban Hospitals Already Have Solar Panels, Although They Do Not Work Outside Daylight Hours

The Government boasts that it has brought solar energy to 99% of its healthcare centers and 89% of its nursing homes.

The director of the NGO Open Arms, Óscar Camps, looks at the solar panels installed at the Juan Manuel Márquez pediatric hospital in Havana. / EFE

14ymedio, October 13, 2026 – The Faustino Pérez Hospital in Matanzas is already generating electricity with 72 solar panels, but it still cannot use that power to keep its services running when the national grid fails. The equipment began to be installed in July, thanks to the Matanzas-Switzerland Group, physician Andreas Osterwalder, and mediCuba-Switzerland. In August, its director, Taymí Martínez Naranjo, acknowledged to the official newspaper Girón: “We currently do not have the capacity to store it.”

The case contrasts with the triumphal figures presented by Miguel Díaz-Canel, who stated in September that renewable energy had reached 47% of hospitals, 99% of polyclinics, 99% of maternity homes, and 89% of nursing homes and homes for the elderly.

But having solar panels does not guarantee medical care during blackouts. Complaints from patients and neighbors, and even reports in the official press itself, reveal facilities that are almost completely dark, medical tests that still cannot be performed, and systems that supply power to only some services. On top of this, some equipment is still awaiting installation. continue reading

Having solar panels does not guarantee medical care during blackouts

The lack of electricity has also prompted complaints from patients. In July, a father reported on Facebook that he had taken his son to the polyclinic in Güira de Melena in Artemisa at night and found the building almost completely dark. He compared it to “hospitals in horror movies.” According to his account, the solar panels were barely powering a few light bulbs.

The difficulties go far beyond the lack of lighting. At the Julián Grimau polyclinic in Arroyo Naranjo, Havana, blackouts were directly affecting medical care. In September, Isa Iris Arzola reported on Facebook the difficulties in sterilizing nebulizer mouthpieces and performing electrocardiograms and X-rays. Another user stated in the comments on her post that only four of the panels on the roof were connected. In Regla, also in the capital, neighbors reported in June that the polyclinic’s panels “do not work,” following a traffic accident in which the victims required medical assistance.

Faced with limitations in the electricity supply, residents of Guanabo, east of Havana, pooled their money to buy an EcoFlow power station to provide backup for the intensive care unit at the local polyclinic, although the emergency department was already using solar power. “It was the community that solved the problem,” activist María Elena Mira told CubaNet in June.

The difficulties are compounded by the risk of theft and delays in installation. In July, journalist Christian Arbolaez reported on Facebook the theft of panels from the Maternity Home in Cárdenas, Matanzas. Days later, he reported the theft of batteries from the maternity home in Santa Marta, in the same municipality, while five pregnant women and a nurse remained at the facility. There is no record of the equipment having been replaced.

Other facilities have managed to maintain essential services during blackouts, although solar backup does not extend to all their departments.

Other facilities have managed to maintain essential services during blackouts, although solar backup does not necessarily extend to all their departments. At the Manuel Fajardo Rivero Hospital in the municipality of Urbano Noris, Holguín, 28 panels and a battery system donated by the International Red Cross supply power to the emergency department, intensive care units, obstetrics, pediatrics and internal medicine wards, the delivery room, and the clinical laboratory. The installation has a capacity of 16 kilowatts, but it has not been specified whether that is enough to power the rest of the hospital.

But the solar panels have not solved the many other problems at this hospital. In July, a mother reported on Facebook a cockroach infestation, with insects crawling over the beds, walls, and floor of the ward where her daughter was hospitalized. In August, another user complained on social media about long waits in the emergency department. According to her account, close to midnight, a little girl was sleeping against a wall while her mother, who had arrived at four in the afternoon, was still waiting for care. She also recounted that a child came out convulsing after waiting more than an hour to be seen.

MediCuba-Europe’s Energy for Life campaign also financed another installation of panels and batteries at the William Soler Cardiocenter in Havana, which is already supplying power to the emergency department, although the rest of the project remains pending.

A large part of these installations also depends on foreign aid. Solar backup has also proved decisive for critical treatments. At the Juan Manuel Márquez pediatric hospital in Havana, panels and batteries donated by the Spanish organization Open Arms keep intensive care ventilators running during blackouts. According to the official press, the system made it possible to perform a 12-hour emergency operation on a little girl during a nationwide power outage.

In September, China sent another 5,000 donated systems for public facilities and homes in isolated areas

Contributions from European and U.S. organizations are complemented by China, one of the main suppliers of solar equipment to Cuba’s state sector. In September, Beijing sent another 5,000 donated systems for public facilities and homes in isolated areas, without specifying how many would be destined for healthcare institutions.

The search for alternatives to blackouts extends to other state services. The Augusto César Sandino Stadium in Villa Clara and Etecsa’s cellular base stations have incorporated solar panels, while a bakery in Artemisa replaced diesel with marabou wood to fuel its oven. In medical centers, the decisive difference is not whether equipment has been installed, but what care they can guarantee when the power goes out again.

Japan, for its part, approved $6.5 million in May to install photovoltaic systems in ten Cuban hospitals through a project implemented with the United Nations Development Program.

Japan approved $6.5 million in May to install photovoltaic systems in ten Cuban hospitals.

The limitations extend across much of Cuba’s provinces. In Las Tunas, the directors of the Francisco Caamaño Deño and Cándido González Horta polyclinics acknowledged to Granma that, although the panels make it possible to preserve vaccines, power emergency services, and resume consultations, ultrasound and colposcopy tests (examinations of the cervix) were still pending at the former facility.

The official figures also fail to reflect the differences between the systems. In Granma, authorities stated that all 28 polyclinics have photovoltaic systems, but 26 have installations with a capacity of just two kilowatts, compared with the ten-kilowatt systems at the René Vallejo polyclinic in Manzanillo and the Bartolomé Masó Márquez polyclinic. This disparity makes it impossible to assume that all of them can maintain the same services during blackouts.

At other facilities in Havana, Artemisa, Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara, Santiago de Cuba, and Sancti Spíritus, installations have been announced or equipment delivered without confirmation that the systems are operational or clarification of their backup capacity. The gap between announcements and results appears even in official assessments: in April, Ángel Suárez Vázquez, director of the Healthcare Support Unit in Granma, reported that of the 83 systems received for healthcare institutions, 28 were still awaiting installation.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The “Speed Enthusiasts” in Camagüey, Cuba, Denounce Beatings During a Police Raid Inbox

Witnesses describe the excessive use of force by the ‘black berets’ in an operation targeting motorcycle races.

Image shared on social media by a young woman who was present during the operation at El Rodeo and denounced the beatings. / Facebook/Claudia Barreira

14ymedio, Madrid, October 13, 2026 – A police raid on the outskirts of El Rodeo recreational park in the city of Camagüey triggered a stampede of young motorcyclists this Saturday. Witnesses reported beatings, damage to their vehicles, confiscation of phones, and the excessive use of force by officers from the Ministry of the Interior’s Special Brigade—the feared black berets. Accounts of the incident were shared on social media by eyewitnesses.

Members of the community say that every Saturday, for at least two years, dozens of motorcyclists have gathered at El Rodeo to race. This weekend, the Police cornered them to break up the event with violence, deploying several patrol cars and police motorcycles, as can be seen in the images that were shared.

Witnesses say officers beat several young people, including women and minors. They also claim that the officers used their boots and batons to strike people and damage motorcycles, and even threw stones at those trying to escape. One account describes how four special forces officers beat a young man who was already on the ground.

“It was absolute chaos,” one attendee writes. “I saw a young woman who had been beaten and an officer, whose face I will never forget, who said that for them to take her to the hospital, she had to have her papers in order and a license.” continue reading

“I don’t understand why they would approve a place like this only to then carry out these kinds of hostile acts against speed enthusiasts”

The complainants also report that some people had their mobile phones taken away to prevent them from recording the beatings. According to the accounts, a gacela (vehicle made by the Russian company GAZ) transported the black berets to the area, and the officers got out “handing out blows.”

“We have already tried to file complaints about the harassment we have received from the authorities, although this has been the biggest incident,” wrote one of the young women present, a member of the motorcycling community. In her view, the real danger during these activities is “the unjustified excessive use of force by the officers.”

Motorcyclists take part in a nighttime race on a public road in Matanzas. / 14ymedio

“Why attack young people who only want to pursue this activity respectfully in an area that was supposedly approved to better accommodate it?” the young woman asks. “I don’t understand why they would approve a place like this only to then carry out these kinds of hostile acts against the motorcyclists.”

Gatherings of motorcycle-racing enthusiasts are not exclusive to Camagüey. This newspaper has also documented similar nighttime gatherings in other provinces, such as Matanzas. Witnesses on social media say they are also common in Sancti Spíritus and Santa Clara.

“These races had been taking place inside the Agricultural Fairgrounds for a long time, and everyone said they were authorized because they were held within state facilities”

The legality of these activities is ambiguous: the Road Safety Code prohibits speed competitions on public roads, but the races at El Rodeo took place on a closed circuit inside a state-owned facility. According to one user, “These races had been taking place inside the Agricultural Fairgrounds for a long time, and everyone said they were authorized because they were held within state facilities.”

Several Camagüey residents complain on social media about the noise and danger posed by the motorcycle races, which apparently have not always been confined to the facilities inside El Rodeo. One person who says they have lived across from the park for years claims that on weekends “there is no way to live in peace” and that nearly every nearby home has “vulnerable cases” affected by the noise and music from the event. Another says they walk the streets every Saturday in fear because of the danger posed by the excessive speeds at which these motorcyclists race on public roads.

Some Camagüey residents also recalled the recent accident that led to the death of retired doctor Carmen Proenza Rodríguez last September. She was traveling as a passenger on a motorized bicycle when a red Honda motorcycle attempted to overtake her and struck her from behind. According to witnesses, the motorcyclist fled the scene, and the doctor died after spending three days in the hospital. Nothing confirms that the motorcyclist was a racing enthusiast, but the case has fueled residents’ criticism of these activities.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Havana, Hand-Corrected on G Street

A purple marker transforms an optimistic slogan into the epitaph of a city that has lost a large part of its young people.

A sign that originally proclaimed “Havana Lives in Me” has received a correction that is as simple as it is devastating. / 14ymedio

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, October 13, 2026 – Someone has decided to correct the official propaganda with a simple marker. At the corner of 23rd and G streets, in Havana’s El Vedado neighborhood, a sign that originally proclaimed “Havana Lives in Me” has received a correction that is as simple as it is devastating. Over the printed letters, an anonymous hand added “There is no” and changed one word. The result comes much closer to the everyday experience of the capital’s residents: “There is no life in my Havana,” as if the city itself were dictating its epitaph.

The intervention did not require a team of restorers, an expert commission, or a budget allocation. All it took was a purple marker, a certain degree of calligraphic skill, and the conviction that the message, decorated with photographs of smiling children, urgently needed updating. The new version also has the virtue of being far more believable than the original.

The sign’s location adds another layer of irony. G Street, officially known as Presidents Avenue, was for years one of the main gathering places for young people in Havana. On its benches, walkways, and flower beds, emos, rockers, geeks, and other urban tribes gathered to express their differences, listen to music, fall in love, or simply spend the night away from family supervision. continue reading

The economic crisis has emptied pockets and streets, emigration has taken away a large portion of the young people, and police operations have helped discourage spontaneous gatherings

There was a time when, on weekends, the avenue was teeming with young people dressed in black, with dyed hair, piercings, and guitars. The emos even became the subject of international news reports, while the police tried to control youth gatherings that challenged, if only through their appearance, the uniformity promoted by those in power.

Nothing remains of that bustle. The economic crisis has emptied pockets and streets, emigration has taken away a large portion of the young people, and police operations have helped discourage spontaneous gatherings. Added to this is the demographic collapse of a country where fewer and fewer children are being born and farewells are commonplace. The avenue retains some of its trees, benches, and monuments, but it has lost much of the energy that once made it a place of gathering and rebellion.

The photographs on the sign show five smiling, healthy, carefree children. They represent a Havana that is supposed to be young and vibrant, although reality points in the opposite direction. The “there is no” added to the advertisement also sums up this absence. There is no fuel, no medicine, and no adequate transportation, but there are also no longer many of the young people who once filled G Street with their eccentricities, arguments, and desire to take on the world.

Where young people once gathered to show that they were alive, an unknown person has now had to write on a sign that the city has been a corpse for quite some time.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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October 12th in Cuba: Frustration and Executions

This Monday marks 66 years since the La Campana executions in Escambray, carried out by Commander Félix Torres.

Rebels against Fidel Castro’s government in the Escambray Mountains, the region where the largest anti-Castro guerrilla movement was concentrated in the early 1960s. / Public domain

14ymedio, Pedro Corzo, Miami, October 11, 2026 / I write out of a need to express my thoughts and share my experiences, to suggest to those who, in good faith, embrace disruptive proposals, that they properly inform themselves about the promoters of magical solutions; that they thoroughly investigate who the people are who promote expedited procedures, radical changes that supposedly will satisfy everyone. This suggestion applies to saviors from both the right and the left.

And it is testimonies like the one I present below that demonstrate how a country’s citizens can lose their rights and property, while being plunged into spiritual and material misery by those who use their histrionic skills to manipulate the resentments and envy, proclaiming a false impartiality and an unjust justice. These deceivers have numerous resources at their disposal, the greatest being the folly and animosity of their followers.

We Cubans had many warnings. We neither listened nor wanted to see. My country wasn’t brought down by some curse, but by a criminal who knew how to manipulate the worst of our society, placing them in a situation where they could destroy everything they had coveted without having worked for it. continue reading

For those of us who were young in October 1960 and have survived these almost seven decades, those days are unforgettable: they were a watershed moment in our lives and the end of a pipe dream. It’s true that many were never devotees of the tyrant, but the rifle fire we didn’t hear awakened even the most dormant among us, spurred on by a profound sense of justice.

The trial of these men was a spectacle reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum and the crimes committed against Christians.

Those days are indelibly etched in our memories. It is a memory that will always haunt us until we have managed to bring the Castro brothers’ crimes to justice, among which, for the people of Villa Clara, those first executions at the painfully remembered La Campana farm in Escambray hold a prominent place.

It happened on the 12th of this month. Five patriots were executed: Porfirio Ramírez Ruiz, president of the University Student Federation of Las Villas, and captain of the Rebel Army; Plinio Prieto Ruiz, commander of the Rebel Army; Sinesio Walsh Río, peasant and captain of the Rebel Army; and José Palomino Colón and Ángel Rodríguez del Sol, both agricultural workers.

The trial of these men was a spectacle reminiscent of the Roman Colosseum and the crimes committed against the Christians. No evidence or reliable witnesses were needed; nor was a verdict reached. It was the will of Fidel Castro, who used a commander named Félix Torres as his loyal henchman, that carried out those vile assasinations. This comandante had devastated the Escambray region with a disastrous agricultural plan that affected all the campesinos, particularly the poorest.

That trial reiterated what many had observed in previous trials during the Castro revolution. More than a hundred people were prosecuted. Individuals with no connection whatsoever were brought together in the same case. Of course, they never received adequate legal representation: the judicial process was an essential part of the campaign of intimidation and repression being implemented, of which most of the population was unaware.

The death of these patriots did not intimidate those whose convictions committed them to freedom and civil rights.

Those who were to be executed, I reiterate, were never sentenced in the sham trial. Father Olegario Cifuentes accompanied them on the bus that took them to the execution wall at the La Campana estate. Witnesses from that time affirm that, when the bus transporting the condemned men passed through the city of Manicaragua, one of them shouted firmly and without a hint of fear: “They’re taking us to La Campana to be shot.”

Father Olegario spoke with them, asked them to go to confession, and offered to deliver a message to their families. Plinio Prieto gave him a brief letter for his wife and children and said, with the fortitude that characterized his entire life, before dying:

“I have faith in God and in men.”

The deaths of these patriots did not intimidate those whose convictions bound them to freedom and civil rights. On the contrary, the sacrifice of these five patriots who took up arms against the Fidel Castro regime resonated throughout the country, but the Escambray region was the most fertile ground and the main stage for the Cuban struggle against totalitarianism.

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Rice, Diapers, and Whiskey Are Among the Products Available at Sancti Spíritus Wholesale Market, the First of Its Kind in Cuba

The minimum purchase is $200 or 24,000 pesos, payable by card or in cash.
In the same city, the Meat Company opens its first retail store.

The new supply market in the city of Sancti Spíritus. / Juventud Rebelde

14ymedio, Sancti Spíritus, October 12, 2026 – Two months after the Cuban Government authorized the creation of supply markets, the first one has opened in Sancti Spíritus. “Rice, seasonings, salt, diapers for children and adults, wet wipes, and whiskey” are among the products available at the establishment, according to the official press.

Anyone can enter the warehouse, located in the former printing plant of the Escambray newspaper, whether or not they own a business, according to the report published in several state media outlets. The only requirement is to make a minimum purchase of $200 or 24,000 pesos, applying the official exchange rate for tourism-related activities of 120 pesos per dollar. For the time being, they explain, sales are conducted in national currency, although they plan to extend them to foreign currency.

The initiative was undertaken by ITH S.A., the state entity responsible for supplies and imports for Cuba’s tourism sector, in order to “bring together a variety of products in one place at prices lower than those on the informal market” and “guarantee all the resources needed by the leisure sector.” The director of ITH Trinidad explains the purchasing procedure: “A customer record is created, and through electronic payment, using a POS terminal or the Transfermóvil platform, the merchandise is taken away. Cash is also accepted.” continue reading

“A customer record is created, and through electronic payment, using a POS terminal or the Transfermóvil platform, the merchandise is taken away”

For the time being, the new market has rented stalls occupied by the Sancti Spíritus Municipal Agroindustrial Company, three private MSMEs, and a foreign firm, although only one of them is identified by name: Banvaria SURL, with “a fairly broad corporate purpose.” Indeed, in the list of MSMEs published by the Ministry of Economy and Planning, where it appears as “Banvarias,” its business activity is listed as “production of construction materials.”

The report includes an interview with its owner, Sancti Spíritus native Alexis Macías Hernández, who, at just 35 years old, is described as “quite the businessman.” His résumé credits him not only with the declared corporate purpose of his company but also with a “cooperative production contract with a company belonging to the Foreign Trade sector,” the “importation of components related to renewable energy sources,” and “a small-scale processing plant for canned products made from both mango pulp and habanero and Mexican chili peppers.” In the photograph accompanying the official report, he poses with a package of adult diapers.

“There are people who think tourism in Cuba will not experience a boom, and I think the opposite,” says the young man, who explains that this was one of the reasons, “along with ITH’s experience in the marketplace,” that “motivated me to be one of the first participants” in the establishment. Macías Hernández asserts that “we need foreign currency to survive” and maintains that “we can obtain it through the sales we make here.”

Alexis Macías Hernández, owner of the Banvaria MSME, which rents space in the new wholesale market in Sancti Spíritus. / Juventud Rebelde

With apparent authority, the businessman says he sees potential in the project and states that “what is available today represents only 5% of what could be made available to customers.” According to the official report, a second supply market will open “in the coming days” in the town of Trinidad, in Sancti Spíritus province. “We have gotten a little ahead of the rest of the country, but little by little, there will be a presence in other provinces,” said Aida Rita Rivas Duarte.

The tenants currently participating in the initiative are described in the report as “the first to take the risk,” while the article also points out the “major obstacle” facing the new warehouse: “not having solar panels and being located in one of the circuits hardest hit by the absence of electricity service.”

Another tenant, the Sancti Spíritus Municipal Agroindustrial Company, reports that its meat products will be available in foreign currency, at prices of around $6 per kilogram. In addition to the salt and rice it already sells, the company will offer “beans and another group of products from our producers as conditions are established because, although there are very good refrigerators, they have no backup power,” said Yuniesco Lorenzo González, the entity’s director of accounting and finance.

At the same time as this supply market opened, the provincial Meat Company in the same city of Sancti Spíritus inaugurated its first retail store selling goods in national currency. Allowing a state-owned company to operate its own stores is another of the regulations approved last August as part of the “176 measures” announced by the regime to open up the economy.

“When the sales and distribution chain leading to the final customer is shortened, prices are cheaper and more favorable for the population,” Lianet González, the entity’s deputy director, told Escambray. However, payment is mandatory “online” and is regulated “in order to prevent resellers from operating.”

As a result, each customer will be allowed to purchase a maximum of “two units of each type of product.”

In addition to this retail store, the company has other online stores selling in foreign currency, one in Sancti Spíritus and another in Trinidad, allowing families abroad to purchase products for Cubans living on the Island.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Manuel Pereira, the Cuban Writer Who Took Havana into Exile, Dies in Mexico

The passing of a writer who lived through revolutionary enthusiasm, knew the great names of the Latin American ‘boom’ up close and ended up finding in exile the freedom he had lacked on the island

Manuel Pereira, with Eliseo ‘Lichi’ Alberto, in a 2006 photo. / Facebook/Manuel Pereira

14ymedio, Havana, October 12, 2026 / Manuel Pereira, one of the last disciples of José Lezama Lima and a singular voice in contemporary Cuban fiction, died this Saturday in Mexico, just three weeks short of his 78th birthday. His death marks the passing of a writer who lived through revolutionary enthusiasm, knew the great names of the Latin American boom up close and ended up finding in exile the freedom he had lacked on the island.

Born in Havana on October 31, 1948, the son of Galician emigrants, Pereira liked to point out that he had not simply been born in Cuba, but in Old Havana. That geography of narrow streets, old buildings and colorful characters fed much of his literary imagination. The city would stay with him even when thousands of miles separated him from its doorways and cobblestones.

He studied Fine Arts at the San Alejandro Academy, but soon found his true calling in words. He worked as a journalist and a screenwriter, published numerous feature stories in the magazine Cuba Internacional and held positions of responsibility at the magazine Cine Cubano. However, one of the defining experiences of his youth took place in the house on Trocadero Street where José Lezama Lima lived.

There he learned from the author of Paradiso a way of understanding literature as an adventure of knowledge. Pereira would retain throughout his life his devotion to that master who taught him to look beyond appearances. Years later, in his memoir El curso délfico, he would leave a testimony of an intellectual and human relationship that never faded. continue reading

Alejo Carpentier hailed him as a born novelist and Gabriel García Márquez went so far as to say it was the novel he would have liked to write about Cuba

His first novel, El comandante Veneno, written between 1972 and 1974 and finally published in 1977, made him a well-known author within Cuba. Inspired by his experiences during the literacy campaign, the work was initially rejected by a military jury that found in its pages foreign-leaning influences and passages considered pornographic.

Alejo Carpentier hailed him as a born novelist and Gabriel García Márquez went so far as to say it was the novel he would have liked to write about Cuba. That praise opened doors for a young writer who also cultivated friendship and intellectual exchange with figures such as Julio Cortázar. His book of essays La quinta nave de los locos became cult reading among young Cubans.

But Pereira’s career was marked by a painful break. During his posting as a cultural diplomat to Unesco in Paris, he watched the Soviet reforms of perestroika with hope. His disenchantment with Cuban political stagnation led him to resign from the post in 1988. Three years later he left the island for good.

Berlin, Barcelona and finally Mexico City were the stations of an exile during which he continued writing, translating and teaching literature. He published novels such as Toilette, Insolación, El beso esquimal and Un viejo viaje, as well as essays and short stories that confirmed his intellectual curiosity and his resistance to any pigeonholing.

In an interview with 14ymedio, Pereira described himself as an essayist who wrote novels. Behind that statement lay a conception of writing as constant exploration, but also the experience of a generation that had believed intensely in a political project and ended up deeply disillusioned.

Mexico, where he had lived since 2004, was his last refuge. There he taught, wrote and continued to evoke a Havana he never entirely left behind.

Translated by GH.

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