At 83 years old, Luis Urbano Iznaga Morales, a retired member of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) who previously worked in personal security, is forced to sweep the streets of the Casino Deportivo neighborhood in the Cerro municipality of Havana to make ends meet.
Johanna Jolá Álvarez shared on her Facebook wall the story "of the hardworking grandfather who lovingly and diligently tends to the gardens, parks, and cleans the streets of the Reparto Casino Deportivo, in order to support himself in his old age."
The current situation in Cuba, amidst a deepening economic crisis, forces many elderly individuals to re-enter the workforce after retirement as their only means of survival.
According to Álvarez, this elderly gentleman "has devoted his life’s work to envisioning a better country," noting that "he deserves the recognition of everyone."
On the social network, he also suggested that the regime owed this man a lot "for being unable to guarantee our elderly the quality of life in their old age that they need and deserve."
Finally, he urged people not to be indifferent to the situation of the elderly man, who, in his own words, "makes an effort every day to keep the neighborhood clean despite the hardships." He highlighted the scarcity currently faced by the country, where garbage accumulates and the government excuses itself with a lack of resources, allowing indifference and negligence to take hold.
Currently, some elderly Cubans draw attention on the streets of Havana as they sift through the trash and collect raw materials to scrape together some money to make it to the end of the month.
The regime on the island devised an initiative known as "Reciclo mi barrio," which has been embraced by many elderly residents. For them, recycling has become more than an ecological activity; it has turned into a daily struggle for survival in the country's capital.
The fate of Ulises Pérez Cuevas, a retired Cuban State Security officer, has been different.
The gentleman reported the precarious conditions in which he lives, despite having devoted his best years to defending the so-called revolutionary process.
In a video shared by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights on its Twitter account, the elderly man recounted that at the age of 14 he joined the underground movement, and that in 1959 he was sent to Havana, where he became a security agent.
"But I am starving, because 1,500 pesos isn’t enough to eat; everything is very expensive," he emphasized.
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