He was identified as Yoel Alejandro Pérez Serrano, the young man who, during Miguel Díaz-Canel's recent visit to El Cobre (Santiago de Cuba), confronted him face to face to denounce the lack of assistance to the victims of the Guamuta neighborhood.
According to confirmations from relatives cited by journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, after hours of uncertainty, Pérez Serrano is safe at home with his family, with no incidents reported.
The video of the moment —shared on social media by the protest artist Omar Sayut Taquechel— shows the self-employed individual asking for the floor and stating that “no one has gone to Guamuta” to address the damages caused by Hurricane Melissa, despite the presence of total and partial collapses and families sheltering in neighbors' homes.
The young man himself, who claimed to live in safe conditions, recounted that he welcomed vulnerable individuals and social cases into his home due to the lack of governmental response.
The intervention went viral within a few hours due to its direct tone and its challenge to the lack of concrete actions in the community.
The young man explained to Díaz-Canel that the residents had to organize themselves to address their needs, “houses in the building with children, families of four households, five households,” but he insisted that it is not his responsibility to go “house by house” to register deficiencies: “I am not part of [what is distributed].”
After that incident, Pérez Serrano's phone stopped responding for two days, which heightened concern among neighbors and users who followed the case online.
According to the report, the poor connectivity in Guamuta contributed to the silence, which was finally resolved when close friends saw him at his home and confirmed that he was with his wife, grandmother, and other family members, with no reports of incidents.
The public complaint had an immediate effect on the ground: two days after the questioning, the district delegate and other officials arrived in the community to begin the house-to-house assessment of the damages, a procedure long awaited by the residents.
The sequence raised questions in the area about whether public pressure was the trigger for the authorities' activation.
Beyond his individual case, the emergence of Yoel Alejandro Pérez Serrano in the national debate highlighted the human cost of the delay in assistance to those affected and gave a name and face to the demands of communities such as Guamuta, which claim to have had to manage part of the response themselves following the hurricane.
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