Hunger and distress seized Santiago de Cuba this Monday, as dozens of people rushed towards a truck loaded with ground beef amid fears of Hurricane Melissa, currently a category 5, and the desperation to find something to eat.
The scene, which could easily be from a dystopian future movie, reflects the level of precarity and abandonment that Santiago residents face, who are confronting the arrival of a powerful cyclone without food or basic resources, even though the regime insists on presenting an image that everything is fine.
According to the communicator Yosmany Mayeta Labrada on his social media, the incident occurred on Avenida Martí, one of the busiest streets in the city, when a truck carrying boxes of ground meat lost part of its load.
What started as an accident turned into a human stampede, with locals running and fighting to grab the packages before the police intervened.
"They even resorted to stabbings; people are out of control, hungry, and afraid of the hurricane," said a witness quoted by the reporter.
In just a few minutes, the area was taken over by patrols and law enforcement agents who attempted to recover some of the merchandise, while others managed to escape with what they called their "hurricane food," he emphasized.
The incident occurs right when the first effects of Hurricane Melissa begin to be felt in the eastern region, with heavy rains and sustained winds.
The population, burdened by shortages and prolonged power outages, in addition to the onslaught of arboviruses (primarily dengue and chikungunya), lives in hours of tension and despair.
"This is not theft, it's hunger," said an elderly woman as she left with a package in her hands, a statement that captures the extreme state of necessity that drives many Cubans to act out of survival.
The scene in Santiago de Cuba starkly illustrates the humanitarian crisis facing the country, where food shortages, the collapse of basic services, and the impact of natural phenomena put the population in a precarious situation.
This human stampede is fueled by the fear of Melissa, which has intensified even more this Monday afternoon, reaching maximum sustained winds of 280 kilometers per hour, according to the latest report from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) of the United States.
With this figure, the phenomenon is solidified as a Category 5 hurricane, the highest on the Saffir-Simpson scale, and the most powerful recorded in the Caribbean in decades.
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