Amidst rubble and official silence: a mother faces the abandonment of the State in Santiago de Cuba

A Cuban citizen has been living for years with her two young children and her mother in a building declared a total collapse after the passage of the Sandy hurricane, without ever receiving the promised assistance from the authorities. 

Today, following the devastation caused by Hurricane Melissa, the situation has escalated from serious to critical in the home located in Santiago de Cuba, and the only official response was an order as simple as it was harsh: "Get out of there."

According to the account on Facebook by independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, who did not mention the names of the individuals involved, the house has collapsed walls, others hanging without support, and an imminent risk of collapse. The residence is uninhabitable, and the main concern is for the safety of the minors.

For years, the family went through procedures, visits, and dealings with local authorities, always hearing the same promise: “You are informed, it will be resolved.” Nothing was resolved, the activist stated in his post.

"That is beyond my control."

After the most recent cyclone, the mother went back to the local delegate, this time with the urgency of someone who knows that a tragedy could happen at any moment. The response was blunt: “There's nothing I can do about that. Get out of there.”

The phrase moved the communicator Mayeta, who -rightly so- raised a series of unanswered questions: Where to go? With what resources? To whose house?

So far, the only "assistance" received reflects institutional neglect: a mattress, recently delivered, which the family had to pay for at 2,050 Cuban pesos. There was no provision of construction materials, no shelter offered, no special protection for the minors, nor any minimally dignified temporary solution.

Amidst rubble and bureaucracy

While the house crumbles, authorities shift responsibilities, pass reports from one instance to another, and leave the family living among the rubble, hoping that a tragedy does not occur which will later be mourned in silence.

The images accompanying the complaint —Mayeta warns— do not seek compassion, but rather a response, protection for two children, and immediate action to prevent a foreseen tragedy.

Because when a house collapses and the State looks the other way, it is no longer a natural disaster, but rather human abandonment.