Related videos:
Machista violence has claimed two more victims in Cuba at the beginning of 2026, with the recent murders of two women by their partners or ex-partners in the municipality of San Juan y Martínez, in Pinar del Río—events that have shaken Cuban society.
The deceased have been identified by family members as Yanicel Valdés and Mileidys Dueñas Pérez, and they were initially reported as missing until their lifeless bodies were found. Both crimes were confirmed by the independent newspaper CubaNet with local sources.
Yanicel, known in the community as "La rusa," allegedly died at the hands of her partner, and was subsequently dismembered and buried in a dumpster, according to initial information released over the weekend by the page Nio reporting a crime.
The identity of the victim was established through social media posts in which her daughter, Mirielis Valdés Martínez, reported the disappearance, which made it easier to connect the search with the body that was found, reported CubaNet.
Over the weekend, the murder of Mileidys was also reported, committed days earlier by her ex-husband, Lorenzo Eduardo García Castro, on the outskirts of the community known as Obeso, according to information corroborated by the digital newspaper. The woman had also been reported missing.
The Facebook profile “De Pinar Soy”, managed by the Ministry of the Interior, confirmed the crime on Monday and revealed that the woman's body was found by the Police buried in the yard of her home, “after having been murdered by her ex-husband ‘Lorenzo’.”
He assured that the aggressor "is in prison and has confessed to his guilt," while the investigations continue, as "more details are unknown."
The publication criticized profiles on the network that “use these events for sensationalist journalism, speculating and manipulating false information to distort reality,” but avoided mentioning the informational void left by the regime’s official media by not reporting the crimes and other violent offenses that are committed daily in the country.
The page claimed that these cases "take time to work through," but stated that the police have acted "quickly and effectively" and have found those responsible for this and other unfortunate recent incidents in the area, though it did not specify which ones.
In the first half of January, the Gender Observatory of the magazine Alas Tensas (OGAT) and the Observatory of Feminicides I Believe You in Cuba (YSTCC) confirmed two feminicides in the country. They also verified an attempted feminicide and the murder of a man for gender-related reasons.
In 2025, both platforms reported 48 femicides, in a context characterized by restrictions on accessing institutional sources on the island, the state's failure to publish official statistics, and the lack of a comprehensive law against gender-based violence and a specific definition of femicide in the Penal Code.
In Cuba, there are also no shelters or immediate care and protection protocols for women and girls at risk.
Meanwhile, OGAT and YSTCC maintain active support lines, in addition to reporting and verification mechanisms for femicides and attempted femicides, based on reports from family members, citizens, and activists, as well as information from the press and community sources.
The organizations have reiterated that these institutional shortcomings "leave thousands of women exposed to known aggressors—partners, ex-partners, neighbors, relatives—and facilitate impunity, while authorities continue to refrain from publishing comprehensive, disaggregated, and transparent statistics on femicides."
From 2019 until October 1, 2025, the observatories recorded 300 femicides in Cuba, a figure that only represents an underreporting of the machismo violence that persists on the island.
Filed under: