Residents of Las Tunas incinerate loved ones in other provinces due to lack of local crematorium.

The province of Las Tunas is the only one in the country that does not have a crematorium, forcing residents to go to other cities to use this service.

The officialist Periódico 26 reported that if the relatives of the deceased wish to use this service, they must carry out the cremations in Camagüey, Santiago de Cuba, or other provinces, first processing the request through the Enterprise of Communal Services, which implies that bureaucracy adds to the pain of the moment.

The fossil waste incinerator located near the Acinox company, right where the construction of a new cemetery for this eastern city had been planned, is also not working, which further complicates the situation, admitted Eiser Prieto Pons, deputy director of Hygiene and Necrology in the province.

"The equipment is there, but there are still civil construction works missing that have prevented it from starting," acknowledged the official.

He justified that, due to the lack of various resources such as cement, they have not been able to make "a slab that can be dismantled later to incorporate the other equipment, for cremation, which is what we need."

The province of Las Tunas has 64 cemeteries. However, the Vicente García cemetery, located in the main territory, and the one in the city of Puerto Padre, are the ones that present the most critical situation in terms of capacity to create ossuaries and niches.

Aggravated situation because "the microlocation is not entirely defined even to start the work on a new cemetery in both cities because," the news website pointed out.

In this regard, he pointed out that "those that were already clear are now subject to changes for different reasons," without mentioning the motives that put at risk the people from Las Tunas saying goodbye to their loved ones in a dignified way.

And while "those realities are resolved," cemetery workers perform some minor maintenance tasks that do not solve the fundamental problem affecting the population: the danger of not being able to bury their deceased due to lack of space.

However, this situation does not catch the government of Las Tunas by surprise.

The weekly magazine, in its digital version, warned in 2021 that amid the increase in deaths as a result of the Covid epidemic, it was evident that the cemetery was overwhelmed.

"Servicios Comunales in Las Tunas works skillfully to develop the necessary capacities in the cemeteries, so that this sensitive process unfolds smoothly," he pointed out.

The bizarre situation included speeding up "the process of exhumation of the bodies," in order to "reuse the space and be able to contribute to the burial of the deceased."

Another "strategy" was to use other cemeteries, such as Becerra and ultimately Santa María.

However, three years ago, the problem of lack of space was already looming, a situation that has not yet been resolved in Las Tunas.

The issue of cemeteries in Cuba often affects the relatives of the deceased, who see the remains of their loved ones exposed on numerous occasions, due to the government's failure to invest in maintenance and improvements.

Recently, human remains were exposed in the cemetery of Bayamo after the wall covering them collapsed, as reported by the Internet user Leosbel Luis Mojena.

In a Facebook video, the young man stated that dozens of remains are left exposed outside the facility after the covering wall collapsed.

On the other hand, the Granma-born exiled doctor Alexander de Jesús Figueredo Izaguirre said on Facebook with irony that now one can discover "the history hidden in every corner of the revolutionary cemetery of Bayamo."

Also, last April, the young Cuban Camila Navarro, after visiting her grandfather's tomb at the Colon Cemetery in Havana, encountered a scenario of neglect and deterioration.

Dancer, influencer, and personal trainer residing in Europe, the young woman shared a video on Instagram showing the deplorable state of the cemetery.