On April 14, 1979, in the quiet town of Banes, Holguín, a 9-year-old girl named Amarilis Muñiz Navarrete went out to buy bread… and never returned.
That short journey—less than 100 meters from his house—became an abyss that, more than four decades later, remains open.
Her disappearance not only shaped the fate of a closely-knit family but also became a painful emblem of the institutional silence regarding the violence that has historically affected women and girls in Cuba.
An ordinary afternoon that ended in tragedy
That Saturday in April, everyday life reigned in the Muñiz Navarrete household.
Mayda, one of the sisters, was waiting to take a bath; Margarita, eight months pregnant, was resting in a rocking chair.
Nothing foretold that Amarilis, when she went out with her friends Rosita and two other girls to fetch bread with the ration book, would never return.
The friends returned home without her.
They couldn't explain where she had gone, whether she had strayed from the path, or if someone had taken her.
No one was on the street, no one was at the bakery, no one in the neighborhood—where everyone knew each other—saw her. She simply vanished.
"On a day like today, April 14, they took my youngest sister, Amarilis, from our home. We lived in Banes, Holguín, Cuba. We still don't know what happened, where she is. Who was the monster that did this?", her sister wrote in a Facebook post in 2019, remembering that day with a wound still fresh.
A relentless search without answers
From the very first moment, the family set out to find her. Neighbors, friends, and even people from nearby towns came together in a frantic search.
The blackout that fell over Banes that afternoon at 6:30 p.m. did not extinguish hope, but it did add both literal and symbolic darkness to the tragedy.
In the following days, fields, riverbanks, and mountainous areas were searched.
Photos were distributed throughout Cuba. The desperation was complete.
"They searched beyond the neighborhood, inquired with the girls who returned, ventured further than the river and scoured its entire length, in the village, and found nothing: not a trace of the girl," recounts a recent article by Mónica Olivera published by the Gender Observatory Alas Tensas.
Meanwhile, Margarita, the pregnant sister, went into premature labor that same night.
She gave birth to a boy, whose arrival would be forever linked to the most devastating moment of their lives.
Official silence and institutional indifference
The Revolutionary National Police issued a notice requesting assistance in locating the minor.
However, it never implemented a real search protocol, let alone an effective one.
The family was deemed "disloyal" due to their political views, and that seemed to be enough for the institutional apparatus to disregard any commitment to truth or justice.
“The case was closed due to lack of evidence,” they told them.
The FMC (Cuban Women's Federation), supposedly responsible for protecting the rights of women and girls, never supported the family, not even with a word of consolation.
The family searched on their own, even turning to spiritualists, psychics, and healers. Nothing.
The pain without a body or grave
Decades later, the memories are as vivid as that first day. There is no grave to bring flowers to. There is no certainty. And without a body, there is no mourning. Physical disappearance is a cruel form of violence that prevents emotional closure. It is a wound without edges.
"Between heaven and earth, nothing is hidden. One day it will be known, and there will be justice," commented a neighbor on the 2019 post.
The memory extends beyond the family. The entire community remains affected.
"The town of Banes came to a standstill; we were all in the street," wrote another witness of that day.
"My daughter was almost 4 years old and was traumatized for a long time," shared a mother.
The disappearance of Amarilis shattered the communal peace of a small town, where no one imagined that anything like this could happen. But it did.
False leads and shattered hopes
Over the years, episodes emerged that renewed both the hope and the suffering of the family.
A dying baker, in a state of delirium, claimed to know where the girl's body was.
The relatives dug in the indicated spot. They found nothing. The man died days later.
Another call, decades later, confirmed that Amarilis had returned with a group of Germans and was staying at the Pasacaballos hotel.
The family moved there. Nothing. Again, smoke.
A truncated biography
Amarilis would have turned 55 years old on November 21. Her story was halted at the age of nine.
Every birthday, his family gathers to pray, sing praises, and renew hope.
In the digital age, they have tried to go further in their search. But the results remain the same: none.
The other side of the 'perfect' country
The case of Amarilis highlights a truth that the official Cuban narrative tries to conceal: violence against women and girls exists and has always existed, whether under neoliberalism or amidst the current crisis.
It is demonstrated by the impunity with which the case was closed, the lack of protocols, the inaction of institutions, and the silence of the media. All of this is also violence.
"The physical disappearance is classified among cases of violence against women... when the whereabouts of the frail and tender body of a little girl are never discovered, even after decades, the pain and trauma persist," notes the text from Alas Tensas.
Talking about Amarilis' case is not just about recalling a tragic past. It is about highlighting that justice has still not been served, and, above all, it is a reminder that as long as a disappearance remains unresolved, a wound remains open.
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