Bones of people are thrown into garbage tanks in the Colón Cemetery, in Havana

The image of human bones lying in garbage tanks inside theColumbus Cemetery has generated outrage among numerous Internet users on Twitter.

“In the Colón Cemetery,” wrote the user identified as “Enrique Varona” on the aforementioned social network, who without further details sharedfour photos that show the treatment that the mortal remains receive in the most important cemetery on the island.

In two of the shared photos you can see ossuaries - very different from each other - placed in a room, but in the other two imagesBones are seen mixed in a garbage tank inside the cemetery.

"How sad! How angry!”; "How strong!"; “What a lack of respect!”; "How awful!"; “I can't believe it,” “What insensitivity!” were some of the comments from Cubans who cannot understand that something like this could happen.

“Even assuming they are from people without mourners, how are you going to throw them away like that in the trash, and in front of everyone?”, questioned an Internet user, who said he was left “speechless” in front of the images.

“They will most likely be creamed and then poured. Bones like this are not thrown away because of the black market that they would generate,” commented another in reference to Afro-Cuban religions that use human bones in their practices.

“If there is no respect for the living, what could be left for the deceased?” was a recurring criterion among several commentators.

“At the moment when one thinks that the country has hit rock bottom, things like this surprise us. There are no more words,” said another.

Collapsed cemeteries

The crisis in Cuban cemeteries has been a recurring complaint in recent years. In 2018, the Cuban government admitted that More than 800 cemeteries in the country were collapsed. To solve this, it was proposed to build more crematoriums, plan exhumations and expand cemeteries in cases where land was available.

However, in Havana, 20 of the 24 cemeteries lack surrounding land to expand into.. Added to the space crisis are complaints about delays in exhumations due to lack of ossuaries.

The situation worsens due to the dramatic aging rate in Cuba, which results in a natural increase in deaths.

Added to the crisis in the funeral infrastructure is the dissatisfaction of the population due to the poor service, exclusively state-run, although a common practice is to make unpaid payments to certain officials to speed up the procedures.

Other complaints are related to the low operating capacity of the crematoriums, the limited supply of flowers and the poor conditions in most funeral homes, where Cubans traditionally keep vigil for their dead throughout the night.

Faced with the crisis, in 2018 the National Assembly placed among the priorities of the island's Economy Plan the programs for the construction of vaults, niches and ossuaries, and the rrehabilitation of heritage necropolises such as that of Colón, in Havana; Reina, in Cienfuegos (center); and Santa Ifigenia, in Santiago de Cuba.

However, complaints continue and many Cubans claim that the arrangements in the cemeteries were pure makeup for a drama that persists.