A heart-wrenching video shared by journalist Mario Vallejo shows the burial of a Cuban in a horse-drawn cart, a situation that highlights the severe crisis in the funeral industry in Cuba.
In the post, Vallejo did not specify which Cuban town the incident occurred in, but he did emphasize that the mourners had to rent transportation with their own resources to carry out the burial.
"I just received this video from Cuba. It is unbelievable. It was sent to me with the following note: 'Mario, the bosses in their cars and the families in our pain, renting vehicles to be able to bury our loved ones. Our Cuba is a lack of respect,'" reported the journalist on social media.
The shortage of fuel and the inoperability of the funeral vehicle fleet, due to a lack of spare parts, have caused funeral services to collapse in many regions of the island.
This crisis has forced families to cover funeral costs in a makeshift manner, from renting transportation to organizing the burial, which in many cases poses an unsustainable financial burden.
Last September, another similar case shocked public opinion. A family from Mayabeque had to walk two kilometers with the coffin to the San Antonio Cemetery because the body was beginning to decompose at the funeral home and there were no available vehicles.
The situation is not isolated and has become a common practice in several provinces of the country. Horse-drawn carts, originally designed for transporting people, are being repurposed for a function that evokes scenes from the 18th century.
Families agree on a price with the owners of these means of transportation, which, although rudimentary, have become an alternative due to the inefficiency of state institutions.
This problem reflects the decline of public services in Cuba, where a lack of resources and poor management have impacted even the most difficult moments in life, such as saying goodbye to a loved one.
The outrage of those affected is growing in the face of a government's indifference, unable to guarantee basic services, while high officials maintain their privileges. For Cubans, the final farewell to their loved ones has become an experience characterized by precariousness and institutional neglect.
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