In the midst of the chaos and destruction left by the hurricane Melissa in eastern Cuba, a voice once again resonated powerfully from Santiago: that of Yurisleidis Remedios, a mother who denounced the government's complete abandonment on social media in light of the humanitarian crisis facing the eastern provinces.
"We are starving," said Remedios in a video posted on Facebook, where she harshly criticized Miguel Díaz-Canel and his wife, Lis Cuesta, for their indifference towards the suffering of the people.
"We have a terrible president who doesn't care if children or the elderly are dying of hunger. More people are dying here than when COVID hit," she stated, visibly upset.
The woman, a resident of the Altamira neighborhood in Santiago, reported that after the passage of the cyclone—which left entire communities flooded and homes destroyed—no real assistance from the authorities has arrived.
Only the artists and local volunteers are trying to assist the victims, while the government "sits with its arms crossed."
"The shameless president we have has sat with his arms crossed watching as the actors and other countries take on the role that he does not," said Yurisleidis.
"A lovely gesture by the actors in Holguín, bringing food to all those people who have truly been devastated, without a home, without anything. They are really heroes," she stated.
Hunger, disease, and collapsed morgues
Remedios reported that in the hospitals of Santiago de Cuba "the morgues are overwhelmed," with more than 60 deaths daily due to illnesses exacerbated by the lack of medical care and poor sanitary conditions.
"It's ten, one, two in the morning, and they're burying the dead directly from the hospital to the cemetery. Here, people are dying of hunger and disease, and Díaz-Canel couldn't care less," he criticized.
The woman described a desperate situation due to the lack of electricity and gas: families cooking with firewood, asthmatic children exposed to smoke, food spoiling due to the lack of refrigeration, and international donations whose whereabouts are unknown.
"Where are the donations that were given for the eastern part of the country?" he inquired.
According to his testimony, the official distribution was limited to "one pound of chicken and one pound of ground beef per person," products that don't even last a day. "You have to eat it the same day, because by the next day it's spoiled," he lamented.
"We need a president with dignity."
Tired of what she sees as a detached and privileged leadership, Remedios sent a direct message to the Cuban president:
"Send food to Santiago, send gas. And don't have that tough face, don't pocket the dollars. You don't care about anything, you live a life of privilege, like a king, while your people grow poorer every day, your people are sinking into misery."
The woman even compared Díaz-Canel's management to that of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele, whom she described as a leader with "dignity and concern for his people."
"We need someone like Bukele, not a president who does not even respect himself," he stated.
A recurring voice against poverty
This is not the first time that this mother of triplets has publicly confronted the regime.
In 2022, her case went viral when she reported that she had to cook with firewood due to the lack of liquefied gas, despite her health issues and living with three small children.
"Resisting, this misery is continuity," she wrote then, posting photos of her makeshift stove in the basement of her building.
After weeks of complaints, the authorities provided him with a gas cylinder and a mattress in poor condition, which he considered an insult.
At that moment, she stated that she was stepping back from social media due to the reprisals and insults she received after being accused of being "ungrateful" and "counter-revolutionary."
"I am neither a worm nor an opponent, just a mother asking for gas to cook for my children," she clarified.
Today, her voice rises again—with more anger and despair—in the face of a crisis that the government seems neither willing nor able to address.
In Santiago de Cuba, as in other provinces in the east, Hurricane Melissa left hundreds of families without shelter or belongings, and although many managed to survive, the material losses are devastating.
Without resources, without decent salaries, and with an absent government, the victims face the disaster practically alone.
"We want freedom, we want a better country. We don't want to keep starving," concluded Yurisleidis Remedios in her video, which has become a symbol of the frustration of a people who are no longer afraid to speak out.
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