The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH) presented on Tuesday the VII Report on the State of Social Rights in Cuba 2024, with revealing findings about the Cuban reality.
The non-governmental organization highlighted in the document that "89% of Cuban families suffer from extreme poverty," one percentage point more than the previous year and 13% more than in 2022.
One of the most significant pieces of data is the one that highlights that "7 out of 10 Cubans have stopped having breakfast, lunch, or dinner due to lack of money or food shortages."
According to the OCDH, "where this lack of food is most suffered is among people over 70 years old," with 79% of those surveyed.
They add that "only 15% of Cubans have been able to have 3 meals without interruption", a palpable reality in the severe inflationary crisis that the island is going through.
The mentioned organization points out that the issue is not limited to food; Cubans also see the integrity of their daily lives affected by "the shortage of medicines, unemployment, which hits millions of Cubans, who see their lives go by amidst old calls to resistance, and do not expect different alternatives to "solve" or escape".
The data is not isolated from previous studies. Last year, the firm DatoWorld, a renowned international electoral observatory, indicated that Cuba is the poorest country in Latin America.
The country has a poverty rate of 72%, and this alarming number places it at the forefront of the countries in the Latin American region, according to information released on the official X account of DatoWorld.
Last year, in addition, Cuba was ranked as the country with the most miserable economy in the world, according to the Annual Index compiled by the American economist Steve H. Hanke, a professor at Johns Hopkins University.
To the point that the regime itself has been forced to acknowledge the misery in which its population lives.
According to the Minister of Labor and Social Security, Marta Elena Feitó Cabrera, in front of Miguel Díaz-Canel, in February of this year, in Cuba there are, up to that date, 1,236 communities living in poverty.
The official also stated that 96% of the problems related to that extreme poverty in the country are "in the process of comprehensive transformation", just as Cuba is going through one of the worst economic crises in its history.
Despite their statements, the data does not coincide with that provided by international organizations, and reality seems to find no solution to this problem, which is worsening more and more in Cuba.
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