An inmate identified as Frank Morales Cuesta, incarcerated in the maximum-security prison of Boniato in Santiago de Cuba, died under circumstances that have sparked outrage among his family members.
According to statements from those close to him, the cause of death may be linked to tuberculosis, although they assert that it was malnutrition that ultimately claimed his life, reported journalist Yosmany Mayeta on his Facebook profile.
"Look at the time, and it's still in the morgue. We've been here since 4 in the morning, and they say there’s no vehicle," expressed a visibly affected family member while waiting with others to transport the body from Ambrosio Grillo Hospital.
The relatives requested the authorities to send a hearse to conduct the viewing and bid a dignified farewell to the deceased.
The Morales Cuesta family stated that the conditions he was in, in Pavilion 17 of the Boniato prison, were unsustainable and accused the prison administration of negligence.
"They killed him through hunger," a family member declared, holding the prison authorities responsible for the death, Mayeta noted.
This event comes just days after a group of activists and opposition organizations reported the murder of Manuel de Jesús Guillén Esplugas, a Cuban political prisoner who was serving a sentence at the Combinado del Este prison in Havana.
Ana Belkis Ferrer, through José Daniel Ferrer's account on the social network X, reported that Guillén, a member of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU), promoter of Cuba Decide, and participant in the protests of July 11, was the victim of a murder.
Immediately afterward, social media was flooded with outrage over the assassination in prison of the young political prisoner and great-grandson of Cuba's National Poet, Nicolás Guillén.
According to a recent report from the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights and the independent media outlet elTOQUE, at least 95 people have died in Cuba over the past five years at the hands of law enforcement, including over 40 deaths of inmates in 2024.
The document highlights that, in addition, 287 individuals have been victims of non-lethal police violence during the same period.
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