Category: Translator: Regina Anavy

Comunales should maintain two collection trucks and eight tractors, but it only has 2,000 liters of diesel per month

In the province of Las Tunas, Comunales should maintain two collection trucks and eight tractors, but it only has 2,000 liters of diesel per month and, of the tractors, only two work. Most of the collection must be taken care of by horse-drawn vehicles. According to the official newspaper, the province generates about 33,200 cubic meters of waste per month.

The saturation of garbage, the leaders admit, has frightened many cart drivers, who “have been vocal about the low salary they receive,” says Prieto, who claims to have “dialogued with them” without them listening. The leader mobilized local Hygiene and Epidemiology officials as part of a “strategy” that he did not reveal to “support” the collection, despite the “low number” of cart operators, whose stampede continues.

At the beginning of April, Periódico 26 described the overwhelming landscape of garbage in Las Tunas: a capital city “full of dumps,” municipalities in absolute “deterioration,” absence of a communal work system and “lack of sensitivity” of the leaders, who act only “when it is indicated by the higher authorities.”

They also regretted the “social indisciplines” such as throwing garbage in any corner, but they recognized that “many residents have no other option

They also regretted the “social indisciplines” such as throwing garbage in any corner, but they recognized that “many residents have no choice but to throw garbage in the dumpsters even when they are full.” “What else can they do if there is no fuel and no horse-and-cart operators?”

The newspaper also demanded a salary increase for the cart operators- “there is no other way” – a measure that should have been taken “many months ago.”

“A very serious problem, in addition, is the inefficient work system of the companies of Communal and Aqueduct Services to face the collection of waste and the discharge of sewer water, which runs through many streets of the capital city,” they summarized. “The deterioration of state equipment and the lack of fuel affected the capacity of the state entities in charge of garbage collection. The situation worsened because the self-employed who collected waste abandoned their positions, overwhelmed by the increase in operational costs.”

When the cart operators threatened to withdraw because garbage collection was not as profitable as they expected, Comunales raised an outcry

When the cart operators threatened to withdraw because garbage collection was not as profitable as they expected, Comunales raised an outcry, since using animals has been the only method they have found in the face of fuel shortages and the absence of special trucks.

Drivers prefer to work in the transport of passengers or cargo, a better paid and less cumbersome job. During the last tension with the cart operators, the testimony of one of them was eloquent: “I don’t need to spend all day covered in muck, with the risk of getting sick, because there are many things in the waste that can hurt you, and they check your papers over and over again. Now, hired privately, with a couple of good cart-loads a day or disposing of debris from a construction, I’m doing well.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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A resident of Nuevo Vedado who once asked Quisicuaba for help told 14ymedio that not everything is rosy in the project. “I live alone and I’m now 76 years old, so I talked to a social worker to see if I could get any help. He told me about Quisicuaba and managed the delivery of a lunch,” he recalls.

“When the food arrived, it was disgusting. My dogs didn’t even like it. I remember that they brought it to me in a bike-taxi, although I think that now they no longer send couriers and you have to go to Centro Havana. I never asked for it again,” he says.

The first part of the report on beggars in Cuba gave an account of the problem: 39% of those who live in the Centers for the Care of Wandering People have not reached the age of 60; 60% sold their home and do not have the resources to join society; 86% are men, 30% have some disability – including 25% with psychiatric disorders – and 31% “have high patterns of consumption of alcoholic beverages.”

In the face of the unrealizable proposal to pass the ball to the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs) or other traditional organizations, Quisicuaba – with its double religious and “social” character – strives to ensure that the regime does not look foolish. A few years ago, the project inaugurated an “assisted living center” in San Antonio de los Baños, Artemisa, in an abandoned rural high school.

Now, according to Alemán, 113 people reside there, and they hope to receive another 24 soon

Now, according to Alemán, 113 people reside there, and they hope to receive another 24 soon. All were previously taken care of in the Havana dining room, and after the opening of the “camp” they arrived at the facilities.

“Many of the patients who are here were alcoholics, for example, and therefore we try to create the family atmosphere that they do not have elsewhere. Here we have a simple regulation that is based on the person’s own will to want to get ahead. We give occupational therapy and work to make them feel important,” the director of the place, Yadelkis Hernández Morales, explains to Cubadebate.

Quisicuaba counts on the help that the Government and local administrations do not give to their own state shelters. “One of our fundamental premises lies in self-sufficiency, including our social dining room. To do this, we request idle land from agriculture, and we now produce coal for cooking food. In addition, we harvest bananas, sweet potatoes, malanga, pumpkin, cassava and beans. We also have an organoponic garden and a livestock module,” says Hernández. The contribution of the regime does not represent a great economic sacrifice, but it allows them to take part of the credit for the functioning of Quisicuaba.

The place also has a medical team, as well as staff from the Ministry of Labor and Social Security. Likewise, the medicines shown in the Cubadebate audiovisual are imported, although Quisicuaba does not state where the funds come from, since it is a non-profit project.

Alpidio Alonso, also showed up and applauded the “deeply cultural work” of the project

The Cuban authorities, who support the initiative, often show their faces in the center and give promotion to Alemán, who has also highlighted the “revolutionary vocation” of Quisicuaba. This same Thursday, a retinue made up of Abel Prieto and other members of the jury of the Casa de las Américas Award – foreign intellectuals – arrived at the Havana headquarters. The Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, also showed up and applauded the “deeply cultural work” of the project.

Also, last December Cuban president Miguel Díaz-Canel toured the Quisicuaba facilities in San Antonio, to “learn how the Quisicuaba Project and several agencies of the Central State Administration, Cuban civil society organizations, the Party and the Government have worked together since 2020 to make this noble work a reality.”

Despite the Government’s attempt to whitewash its image, the homeless in Cuba are far from disappearing. A report by this newspaper reports the situation of residents of Havana who, like many on the Island, try to survive without the help of relatives abroad.

“Every week I get more and more acquaintances in Cuba asking me to send them money, because they don’t have children who send it to them. But I can’t deal with everyone; I have my children there too,” said a man from Havana living in Miami who doesn’t understand how those who don’t receive remittances can survive.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Island, mediCuba-Europa promoted another campaign to finance the purchase of 250 pulmonary ventilators, and in 2021 delivered $600,000 for the purchase of syringes and needles. The NGO also announced that it planned to support the development of Cuban vaccines against the virus, although it is not known if that proposal materialized.

In addition to maintaining direct collaboration with the Cuban Government, Cavalli is a strong advocate of the regime on the international stage and has denounced the United States embargo* as the main cause of Cubans having poor access to healthcare.

The shortage of medical supplies on the Island has become a chronic problem. In mid-April, the official press announced that enalapril – one of the most prescribed drugs on the Island and the most scarce – was returning to the pharmacies of Ciego de Ávila after missing for several weeks. However, the authorities explained that “there is only availability to cover 70% of the dose.”

 The shortage of medical supplies on the Island has become a chronic problem

The lack of enalapril is not the only one – far from it. Of the 603 products on the so-called province card – 197 imported and 401 of domestic production, the authorities said, although they do not add up – on average 226 have been missing. In addition, 471 had zero or low coverage in the most recent 15 and 30 days.

The worst situation occurred in 34 of the 84 products of the control card: contraceptives, tranquilizers (out of 23, 16 were missing) and antibiotics (out of 24, 17 were missing); all this as a consequence, they said, of the “effects of the current economic crisis and the resurgence of the United States blockade against Cuba,” which brought the shortage to “historic levels.”

The export of Cuban doctors on “missions” to different countries, however, continues to bring great monetary benefits for the regime, which does not reinvest those funds in Public Health. Last February, for example, 89 health workers arrived in Honduras to help in the hospital network. The hiring, by the Government of Xiomara Castro, violates the country’s Constitution, according to Honduran doctors.

*Translator’s note: There is, in fact, no US ‘blockade’ on Cuba, but this continues to be the term the Cuban government prefers to apply to the ongoing US embargo. During the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 the US ordered a Naval blockade (which it called a ‘quarantine’) on Cuba, between 22 October and 20 November of that year. The blockade was lifted when Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from the Island. The embargo had been imposed earlier in the same year in February, and although modified from time to time, it is still in force.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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 The animals were slaughtered and sold at 100 pesos per pound of meat

“During the investigative process, the Police carried out searches in the homes of the three defendants and found meat and instruments used in the illegal slaughter, plus a scale used in the sale. With this evidence, they proceeded to arrest said citizens,” the newspaper summarizes.

Two years after the crime, two of the defendants were sentenced to nine years in prison and the other to six years, for theft and illegal slaughter of livestock and sale of the meat. They must also jointly compensate those harmed, the newspaper added.

Another food-related crime occurred recently in Las Tunas, where the Ministry of the Interior seized six tons of potatoes from a private company in the main municipality. According to the official press, the authorities noted the “illegality of the invoices” of the business, so the product was withdrawn and an investigation initiated.

An agent of the ministry, Ender Simón Gutiérrez, explained to the local newspaper Periódico 26 that, “in reviewing the documentation of the alleged legal purchase, it did not justify the origin of the volume of the product.”

The potatoes had been acquired by the private company in the province of Artemisa and were sold in the city of Las Tunas at 80 pesos per pound, a price that, the newspaper says, was not authorized either. In the ration stores of the province, the price of one pound of potatoes is 11 pesos, while in the state markets leased to private individuals it is 70 pesos.

The government company Acopio, where the tubers were delivered, distributed the tons between the Ernesto Guevara hospitals, the pediatric Mártires de Las Tunas and the Clodomira Acosta psychiatric hospital, in addition to the Carlos Font nursing home, the Calixto Sarduy medical center and two children’s homes without government subsidies. These centers, adds Periódico 26, with praise for the agents who “watch over the legality,” “now have a good amount of that product to reinforce the feeding of patients, the elderly and children.”

The prosecution of crimes related to food production in the country has intensified in recent months, and the Government’s inability to import food has become evident. The control of the farmers, in which a “hard hand” was promised, is one of the strategies to alleviate the crisis. Despite the farmers’ discomfort, quantities of “diverted” products have been returned to the State.

 The prosecution of the authorities for crimes related to food production in the country has intensified

An article published on April 19 in Periódico 26 revealed that, in Las Tunas alone, when only a fifth of the registration had been completed, the Ministry of Agriculture managed to add to the state inventory 30,170 liters of milk, 27 tons of beef and 142 tons of agricultural products that were not being delivered to the State.

“The first data reveal a negative difference between the livestock counts in the records and the one that really exists in the pastures, without documents that appropriately support the reasons for that lack,” the media said at the time. In addition, there are cases of “delayed conversions, improperly registered births, unidentified animals and illegal sales.”

History repeats itself in Artemis, where the authorities found all kinds of misdeeds: animals without a brand or ear tag, with unreported changes of category, outside the farm without authorization and without documents have been just some of the 9,300 violations counted.

State pressure on farmers and landowners, added to the fear of being fined or locked up, has forced them to attend en masse to the livestock control records and to register the animals that have died or were raised illegally. However, the number of violations is still remarkable. In just a month and a half of “controls” in the province, the authorities have added to the State plan 2,600 liters of milk that the farmers did not deliver to the official channels, according to El Artemiseño.

Last February, the theft of 133 tons of frozen chicken from the Food Marketing Company of Havana was also news, which ended with 30 defendants, 11 of them in pretrial detention.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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The expression used to communicate Corona’s departure is very similar to the one used when reporting the arrest of Gil Fernández, who is still under “rigorous investigation”

In fact, the expression used to communicate the departure of Corona is very similar to the one used when reporting the arrest of Gil Fernández, who is still under “rigorous investigation” today for “serious mistakes made in the performance of his duties.”

From her home in the Canary Islands, María Victoria Gil told 14ymedio a month ago that her brother, Gil Fernández, the former Minister of Economy and right-hand man of Miguel Díaz-Canel, was being held incommunicado in “some detention house of the Ministry of the Interior.”

President Díaz-Canel has reiterated in recent months the Government’s “zero tolerance” for economic crimes, and the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, quoted in official media, has asked for “a tougher hand” in the face of “weakness, the lack of urgency and poor control” in the state sector.

Last March, the YouTube channel Molinos por la Libertad denounced Alexandre Corona for leading a corruption plot that also involved “heads of the Ministry of the Interior, provincial and military counterintelligence leaders” and even “the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero and Díaz-Canel himself.”

According to this video, the governor, a former Ministry of Interior intelligence officer expelled for corruption in 1998, owned several small businesses, such as ConstruSur, which diverted resources that he himself authorized to build social housing. However, the Government never responded to these accusations.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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There is also no cement or steel for the manufacture of buildings. At the beginning of March, the newspaper Escambray published that the Siguaney cement factory, located in the municipality of Tabasco, will only produce 20,000 tons of cement this year due to the energy crisis in the country. The figure represents less than half of the 47,000 tons obtained in 2023.

The Unofficial Gazette does not explain where the materials that will be sold to those affected will come from

The terrible housing situation does not exclusively affect Havana, where according to the General Urban Planning Plan of Havana there are 946 properties at risk of collapse. In Ciego de Ávila, for example, more than 40,000 houses would have to be built to resolve the housing situation, which is not the worst in the country. Very close, in Villa Clara, 39% of the houses are in poor condition. In July 2023, the Granma reported that 61,559 families from all over the Island lived on dirt floors and that only 2,103 had solved the problem.

Other data from the Ministry of Construction indicate that the housing deficit in Cuba exceeds 856,000 homes. Between 2021 and 2023, only 50,000 had been built. By the middle of last year, only 13% of the state subsidy program had been implemented, and 154 of the 9,000 rooming houses had been eliminated.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

“We warn of the upsurge in violations and call on the international democratic community to denounce these facts”

López Hernández reported that doctors diagnosed her with a “right humeral dislocation (sprain of the right shoulder)” and a “subluxation in the thumb of the left hand.”

Also in Matanzas, but this time in the municipality of Colón, the secretary general of the Independent Trade Union Association of Cuba, Iván Hernández Carrillo, was summoned by the regime, “as part of the harassment campaign he suffers.”

Last week, in Camagüey, independent journalist José Luis Tan Estrada was interrogated twice, explains the OCDH report. The former professor was ultimately fined 3,000 pesos “for violating Decree Law 370, a law used by the Havana regime to silence activists, journalists and citizens” after being accused “of publishing memes, comments and even “liking” other publications.”

Also, “the former political prisoner Luis Darién Reyes Romero was intimidated with a gun in the middle of the street in Old Havana by a repressor dressed in civilian clothes,” a fact classified by the OCDH as “serious.” The video circulated on social networks in which Reyes Romero showed the face and weapon of the State Security agent while chasing him.

“We warn of the upturn in violations and call on the international democratic community to denounce these facts. Likewise, we support the efforts of the Cuban Catholic Church to mediate the serious crisis that the country is experiencing,” the organization concludes.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Like him, hundreds of thousands of elderly Cubans – two and a half million over 60 years of age on the Island – are on the verge of extreme poverty. Those who don’t even have a roof over their heads sleep in the streets. Several of them take advantage of the busiest roads of the capital to resell a few items, always scarce, always of poor quality. One of them is Galiano street, in Central Havana, a true showcase of misery.

An old woman had half a dozen disposable razors for sale this Tuesday, of those that are also discarded: few people can shave with those gadgets that they sell in state shops.

Later, on a step under the arches, another old man sells cigars and rubber parts for pots and coffee makers. Others offer sweets, liquid detergent, instant soft drinks or batteries.

“It’s not just that it’s not enough for them to live on, it’s that it’s useless for them,” said a woman who helps her 80-year-old mother as much as she can and who bought, out of charity, a battery pack in Galiano on Tuesday. “It’s just that 1,500 pesos of pension in this country is nothing. And look how hungry they are, how much need and sadness.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

“In the early morning I was awakened by a strong chemical smell, similar to that given off by the Cabaiguán refinery. I realized that it was coming from the house itself, and I ran to open the kitchen door to ventilate,” she says. Before the family knew it, they had filled the front of the house with revolutionary slogans, and only the word “Homeland” remained. The strong smell came from the liquid asphalt that the regime’s agents had used – along with a blue paint – to scribble slogans and erase her sign.

“They used a blanket with chlorine that I had at the entrance for people to clean their shoes because of covid, and they painted with it. The substance they used, which is also toxic and flammable, is controlled by the State, and people aren’t supposed to use it. It’s made in the Cabaiguán refinery, and I don’t know how they dared to smear the walls with that. They didn’t care that we had a girl, and the substance irritated her eyes and parts of her body,” says Hernández. “They also urinated at the door.”

“At five in the morning,” she continues, “the act of repudiation began.” Hernández still has the recording of almost an hour of “anti-imperialist” slogans and communist hymns. Some acquaintances, incited by State Security, called her to ask her to remove her sign. “When I told them I wouldn’t, they hung up.”

The “act of reaffirmation” also had a police presence to block access to the street, flags and posters, broadcasters from Radio Cabaiguán – who installed a speaker system in the municipality’s maternal hospital – and many unknown people who were there by order “from above”.

“After the event, reprisals began,” she said. “They monitored us continuously, especially when there were rumors of demonstrations, and they threatened our friends that ’there would be consequences’ if they approached us. People also came to ask us strange questions and tell us that they were on our side. They encouraged us to do acts of vandalism such as poisoning the aqueduct, attacking the thermoelectric plant or asking if we agreed to send the girl to school.” According to Hernández, during the two years they were in Cuba after the event, the family had to think carefully about every word they said in public. “They asked us nonsense to see if they could incriminate us.”

Finally, she and her husband were expelled from their jobs: she as an architect in a construction company in Cayo Santa María and he as a hydraulic engineer in the International Economic Association of the municipality. From there, everything became more difficult.

I have recordings of conversations at work where they tell us that it was an order from the Government, that they were ordered to chuck us out and that they were not interested in our job performance, just that we had to get out of there. Then we couldn’t find work; we were abandoned,” she relates.

“I tried a job as a photographer, but first they didn’t want to give me the license and then, when I insisted so much that they gave it to me, they did everything possible so that I didn’t have clients.” For the family, carrying out any procedure was an ordeal, since the authorities got in the way of every step. “If it took two days for a person to get a document in the civil registry, it would take me two months or more. When I applied for a passport, they didn’t want to give it to me either, because I was ’regulated’ (forbidden to leave the country), and I had to call many institutions and insist strongly that they give it to me,” she explains.

Two years after the protests, when her husband finally got the humanitarian parole to travel to the United States, the family had by then lost contact with many relatives, lost their professional careers and sold their property – including the house where they painted the sign – “to be able to eat.”

“Now I’m with my daughter in the Dominican Republic waiting for the parole to come to me as well. Of course, I arrived legally,” she explains. “In Cuba, with a government that is not worried about an architect and her family dying of hunger, we could not stay.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

 During this season, in which Cubans chase after potatoes and pay scandalous prices for them, customers notice not only their quantity but also their quality

The authorities insisted, despite the obvious losses, that in many parts of the province the national average for the potato harvest, which didn’t reach 10 tons per hectare (2.5 acres), was exceeded and even doubled.

With the tubers collected, “the potato has been guaranteed for the standard family basket of the province, seven markets in Havana and the Frutas Selectas Company,” in addition to the fact that, “since the beginning of the harvest, eight pounds of potatoes have been distributed to each person in the province,” celebrates the local newspaper.

During this season, in which Cubans chase after potatoes and pay scandalous prices for them, customers notice not only their quantity but also their quality. In the Cuban capital, for example, many complain that the tuber requires a lot of cooking time to soften properly. As confirmed this week by 14ymedio, the price of a pound of potatoes in the markets is 180 pesos.

Sought after by customers, merchants and informal sellers, the potato has also been the motive of several crimes on the Island. The most recent example: the theft of 1,293 pounds in the Havana municipality of Plaza de la Revolución last March. Destined for the 431 residents of the area, the potatoes disappeared after multiple “violations” that left a notable shortage.

The administrator of the market where the robbery occurred was arrested and taken to the Zapata and C station, according to the official website of the municipal government, which assured that the event would be investigated. After an inspection at the premises, “an adulterated weight” was found that served to give customers a lower quota than they were entitled to.

However, the figures offered by Sánchez García were higher than those published on the Council’s page and were taken up in a report by Tribuna de La Habana. According to the preliminary count, it said, 1,609 pounds of the tuber were missing, destined for 536 consumers.

Another article published in Tribuna weeks ago warned about the theft of potatoes from state refrigerators, “where the tubers selected for seed for later harvests or reserves that allow normal distribution are concentrated.” The note regretted that, with the disappearance of the Soviet Union – which was supplying the Island “throughout the year” – potatoes have gone from piling up “rotting in sacks in front of any food stall” to being a “strategic” food.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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Last Friday, the first secretary of the PCC in the province of Las Tunas, Manuel René Pérez Gallego, was also dismissed after 19 years in office. His place was occupied by Walter Simón Noris, who was a member of the PCC executive bureau in Camagüey.

At the beginning of April, the first secretary of Mantua, in Pinar del Río, Liusmara Rodríguez Soriano, was dismissed. A source told 14ymedio that this was a result of the official’s poor management in the territory.

Last Friday, the first secretary of the PCC in the province of Las Tunas, Manuel René Pérez Gallego, was also dismissed after 19 years in office

“He made a lot of mistakes. There have been more homes affected by floods and cyclones in recent years in the municipality. There are still people who have been asking for materials and help to repair their little house for ten years and more,” said the source from Pinar del Río. In addition, “he gave power to people who used cement and roofs as if this were a private farm.”

Last February, three ministers were dismissed, one of them – the former head of Economy and former deputy prime minister Alejandro Gil – who is under investigation for an alleged crime of corruption, as announced a month later.

Likewise, in recent weeks, the president of the National Association of Small Farmers (ANAP), a trade union organization in the orbit of the PCC, was also replaced.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

Two days ago, Rufina Velázquez shared a video where she explained that her brother had been informed that she could visit Velázquez Toranzo on April 19 and that, after the visit, she could offer more details about her father’s status.

After the arrest, the Catholic missionary was taken to the headquarters of State Security, Villa Marista, in Havana. As a sign of protest against the arbitrary decision, he went on a hunger strike which led to him to need medical attention and exacerbated his skin cancer.

The only thing they have told him is that they will release him, but only with a forced exile, that is, completely banished, without being able to return to Cuba

State Security said that the reason for the arrest, as Rufina Velázquez told Radio Martí, was “inciting the people and involving a minor.” “The only thing they have told him is that they will release him, but only with a forced exile, that is, completely banished, without being able to return to Cuba, and my father does not accept this condition,” the daughter stressed.

During the month of March, protests took place in several provinces to demand electricity, food and freedom. Prisoners Defenders (PD) counted 38 detainees up to the 25th of that month, most of them in Holguín (13) and Santiago de Cuba (12).

The report published by PD every month, pointed out that up to February there were 1,066 political prisoners in Cuba. The document
says that of the total number of detainees, 33 are minors and of them, 29 are serving sentences “for sedition.”

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

He said that the Cuban State “paid for this unique operation for all stranded Cubans who voluntarily took this alternative” on six flights to Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba since last Friday.

He also stated that because Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint Louverture International Airport has been closed, it was not possible to guarantee repatriation by that route.

Therefore, the embassy “coordinated the voluntary departure of Cuban citizens by land to the city of Cape Haitiano,” from where they returned.

In addition to the Cubans who had traveled to Haiti to buy items that are scarce in their country and resell them on their return, several thousand Cubans and 53 Cuban health professionals on a medical mission reside in Haiti.

One of them celebrated the operation on the Foreign Ministry’s website but also remembered those who remain there. “Excellent mission, but there are still more than 200 Cubans living in Haiti. It is worth noting that these flights were planned by Sunrise Airlines for passengers who had tickets to Cuba before and after the date of the closure of the Toussaint Louverture international airport in the Haitian capital,” he said.

“Excellent mission; there are still more than 200 Cubans living in Haiti

The new episode of violence in Haiti broke out at the end of February after the escape of 3,000 prisoners from two prisons in Port-au-Prince, including gang leaders who regained control of their territories.

Since then, the governments of different countries have proceeded to evacuate their citizens by different means, while Cubans have had to wait more than 50 days, desperate due to the lack of money.

At the beginning of April, several of them published a video on social networks in which they urged the Island’s authorities to take more forceful measures to rescue them. “All countries have already taken their citizens out of here. We are the only ones left,” they claimed.

The Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry, resigned shortly thereafter, and a nine-member transitional presidential council must now seek a replacement.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.