Lines since early morning at banks in Santiago de Cuba to access cash.

Access to cash through ATMs or bank counters continues to be a serious problem for the residents of Santiago de Cuba, and the regime has not been able to find an effective solution to this situation.

At the bank located at the intersection of Garzón and Tercera streets, in the Santa Bárbara neighborhood, people spend the night and early morning waiting in line to access the limited cash available when the bank opens the next day.

A person, who preferred to remain anonymous, sent the CiberCuba newsroom an image showing the huge line formed at dawn on this Wednesday next to the bank in Santiago de Cuba.

"Most don’t even have the hope of getting cash," noted the whistleblower, who explained that many of the people in line were elderly individuals waiting to collect their retirement pensions.

"It breaks the heart to know that 80-year-old people sleep in the streets just to be able to withdraw cash from ATMs or banks; what the government does to this vulnerable group is criminal and abusive," he pointed out.

“Every month the same thing happens, retirees trying to collect their pensions, and workers doing the same with their salaries. This is not life,” said the person.

The problem of accessing cash is neither new nor is it being addressed by the regime.

In Santiago de Cuba, almost a year ago, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights alerted about the problem of people's access to money in banks and ATMs.

"Santiago de Cuba. Since 6 in the afternoon, lines begin to form in front of the ATMs for the next day at 8 in the morning in an attempt to access the little money that the machines might dispense," the organization stated in a video shared on the social network X.

Also in the same city, but last April, social media echoed the same situation: elderly people standing in long lines to access the little money that is deposited in banking institutions.

However, despite the fact that the regime in Cuba has promoted banking in an accelerated and mandatory manner, in practice, the government measure is not being followed in many state entities in Santiago de Cuba, which harms residents who are unable to access cash.

According to the digital edition of the newspaper Sierra Maestra, in March, a tour was conducted through gastronomic centers in the eastern city, and numerous problems in the implementation of that government provision were discovered.