An elderly person searches for food in the garbage in Santiago de Cuba.

An elderly man was seen searching for food in Santiago de Cuba this Wednesday, a clear sign of the worsening economic crisis and how vulnerable people are forced to seek means of survival.

The communicator Yosmany Mayeta published the photographs on Facebook, pointing out that it is not the first time he shares this type of content on the social network, and also mentioned that they were taken at the José Martí Urban Center.

"With the difficult situation that the island is facing, these lamentable scenes are being seen daily, where elderly people, most of them retired, search among the garbage for something to eat in order to survive," warned the independent journalist.

However, on some occasions these people do indeed dig through the garbage in the hope of finding food scraps, which they later sell to pig farmers as an additional way to make a living amidst the crushing economic inflation.

The sad reality of elderly people living in conditions of begging, searching for food in the garbage, is repeated in several Cuban cities.

The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH) denounced last April the increase in begging in the country and shared videos that show the rise of this issue.

The situation becomes commonplace in the provinces of Camagüey and Santiago de Cuba, alerted the non-governmental organization in a video published on the social network X.

Begging in Cuba is a reality that the government cannot hide as it did in the past. The numbers from one year to another show significant increases in extreme poverty on the island.

According to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security (MTSS), in Cuba, 3,690 homeless people have been registered between 2014 and 2023, as reported by the official newspaper Trabajadores in April of this year.

A masked figure that does not include those who, for different reasons, have had to resort to begging in front of churches or in front of the few tourists who arrive on the Caribbean island each year.

Nor are those who, due to high prices, food shortages, and low pension salaries, have had to resort to "diving" into garbage in search of sustenance for their frail stomachs.