Regime confirms increase in violence in Santiago de Cuba

The province of Santiago de Cuba is experiencing a worryingincrease in violent events so far in 2024, a trend that the Prosecutor's Office confirmed to the official press.

Elizabeth Govea Maceo, chief prosecutor of the Provincial Department of Criminal Proceedings, admitted that “in relation to violent events and crimes committed against the life and integrity of people” a “high rate of events” have been filed, according to a newspaper report.Sierra Maestra.

However, the public official said that in these events “injuries predominate and violent deaths do not increase.”

However, according to her, despite the fact that "events have occurred in which people's lives and physical integrity were affected, (...) violent events are not what characterize the criminal environment of the territory."

In contrast, citizensdoes perceive an increase in events that end in the death of people and systematically denounces such events on different platforms on the internet.

The prosecutor justified this perception by saying thatviolent deaths “Today they have greater visibility due to their almost immediate publication on social networks.”

At the same time, he suggested that people manipulate or distort the facts in the publications: “It does not imply in all cases that the way in which they socialize on the Internet has happened, because after the investigations have been exhausted, it sometimes happens that what is disclosed it did not happen that way.”

Govea questioned the intentions of these complaints on social networks, since they are spaces where events are distorted and, according to the prosecutor, this creates uncertainty in the population, who even question the procedures of the corresponding authorities.

In addition to the violent events, the official warned that crimes related to livestock have also increased,robberies with force in homes or with intimidation of people, thefts linked to the theft of phones and wallets in public, and robberies in warehouses, doctors' offices, among others.

Finally, the official media acknowledged that there is also aincrease in acts carried out by young people, related to drug trafficking and possession,in addition to “others committed by youth groups that are integrated into the same neighborhood, generally by young people disengaged from work or study, who meet for activities where confrontations occur.”

The rise in crime and insecurity in Santiago de Cuba, like in the rest of the country, has occurred after the worsening of the economic crisis which, in turn, has increased the deprivation of the population.

In the midst of this crisis panorama, citizens have responded by increasing protests against the regime in which they have demanded, among other things, greater security anda more effective fight against crime.

RecentlySantiago de Cuba was the epicenter of the March 17 demonstrations, which later spread to other locations in the country, and where the regime mobilized and repressed with more agility than when facing crime.