A violent attack against the director of the Arístides Viera González Pre-University Urban Institute (IPU), located in the Playa municipality in Havana, has raised alarms about safety in Cuban educational institutions.
The events took place on the morning of this Wednesday and have been recounted in an audio shared on social media by a tenth-grade teacher from the same school, who was also injured during the incident.
According to the testimony of the teacher, two young people aged 20 and 21, unfamiliar with the IPU, attempted to enter the school from the early hours of the day.
The security staff responsible for surveillance identified them as outsiders and denied them entry.
However, the refusal did not stop them. Soon they returned dressed in school uniforms, which allowed them to blend in with the students and evade the security of the place.
Once inside, the intruders accessed a twelfth-grade classroom, where their presence was detected by the class teacher. Feeling discovered, both ran out, triggering a chaotic situation.
"The students created a tremendous lack of discipline in the school," the teacher recounted.
The confrontation and aggression towards the director
The situation escalated when the teacher, alerted by the twelfth-grade professor, attempted to stop the youths upon seeing them fleeing through the center.
“When I manage to see them, they run away. I managed to catch one, who attacked me, but I quickly subdued him. I couldn't do anything else,” recounted the professor.
At that moment, the second intruder approached and began to strike the professor on the head, back, and other parts of the body, as recounted by the victim himself.
The violence escalated into a chaotic fight involving several students and ultimately the director of the IPU.
The management tried to intervene to restore order, but they were also violently assaulted by the intruders. "They hit the principal as well," the teacher stated.
Both assailants were, according to the perception of the professor who recounted the incident, inebriated and possibly under the influence of other substances.
Despite the seriousness of the incident, the professor assured that the teaching process was not interrupted. The operational guard came and arrested them
Nevertheless, the professor and the principal, who turned out to be the most affected, subsequently went to the police station at 3rd and 110, in the same municipality, to file a formal complaint against the assailants.
According to another source linked to the IPU, the aggression would be related to drug trafficking or consumption issues.
"That kid has a serious drug problem, and the two little ones who hit the principal went there to demand something," said a witness who requested to remain anonymous.
What comes next?
So far, no official statement has been issued by the Ministry of Education or the municipal authorities.
The seriousness of the incident, however, highlights the urgent need to strengthen security mechanisms in schools and to seriously address the issues of drug consumption and trafficking that affect students and young people in general.
It also raises a debate about the preparation of management and teaching staff to face situations of violence in the educational sphere, as well as the institutional response to such assaults.
The IPU Arístides Viera González, located at 31 A No. 1805, between 18 and 20, in the Havana neighborhood of Kohly.
In its origins, it was a convent of the Ursuline order. During the 1970s and 1980s, it served as the headquarters for the school of the then Embassy of the USSR in Cuba.
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