The crisis that Cuba is undergoing has reached such an extreme point that even death no longer guarantees dignity.
In Velasco, a popular council in the municipality of Gibara, Holguín, a family had to make a coffin out of cardboard and adhesive tape in order to bury one of their own, due to the complete lack of coffins at the local funeral home.
The incident was reported on social media by Hermes Yasell, the late man's nephew, who shared a video on Facebook showing his relatives assembling the coffin while the widow is heard crying uncontrollably.
"This you see here is an uncle of mine who died in Velasco, Holguín, and look at what they had to do to bury him. What a lack of respect… that people can't even have a dignified resting place," wrote Yasell.
In his post, he also questioned why the people are asked to "resist" when the Government can't even guarantee the bare minimum to lay a dead person to rest.
The image is even more ironic: the cardboard and seal used featured the logos of Cubamax, a shipping company from the United States, and the well-known food brand Goya, as if dignity also depended on what comes from abroad.
The widow of the elder, Juana Bruzón Cruz, recounted her ordeal in tears to Martí Noticias.
She recounted that her husband was a fighter against bandits, and yet he was buried in a cardboard box.
"Five dead at the funeral home and there was nothing to bury them with. One was buried in a broken refrigerator box. My old man was buried in a cardboard box," he said.
The body remained in the house from one in the afternoon until eight in the evening, already showing signs of decomposition, while the family members constructed the makeshift coffin.
Juana described a scene of complete abandonment: no electricity, in darkness; without a hearse or makeup for the corpse.
"Without any attention. There was no one to make state arrangements to obtain a box," he reported.
The family had to borrow flashlights from neighbors to finish the coffin and finally transported the body on a tricycle to the cemetery.
"This revolution is garbage. I'm telling you. The rulers are cynics. The worst terrorists in the world are them. They have us finished, they have us destroyed. They have destroyed Cuba," he declared.
Her words reflect not only pain but also a profound indignation towards a system that has failed to fulfill even its most basic responsibilities.
From the funeral home in Gibara, José Leyva acknowledged to the journalist Mario Pentón that "there has been a problem with the caskets," but he attributed it to issues with electricity and fuel.
He explained that it is not a manufacturing problem, but a logistical one: without electricity to use saws and without diesel to transport the wood, they are delayed in producing and distributing the sarcophagi.
"Everything has been due to fuel and power issues. It's terrible," he stated.
He also said that the hearses are very old, without spare parts, and that they keep running thanks to the "inventions" of the drivers.
However, the testimonies of the family and other neighbors indicate that these issues are neither new nor exceptional.
Collapse of necrological services
For years, corpses have been transported in tricycles, trucks, or wheelbarrows, a sign that the collapse is not situational but structural.
The lack of electricity prevents the preservation of bodies, the scarcity of fuel halts transportation, and the absence of supplies turns the final farewell into a scene of humiliation.
The case of Velasco is a stark example of just how far institutional decay has progressed.
A state that cannot guarantee coffins for its dead is a state that has renounced its most fundamental duty: to protect human dignity at all stages of life, even in death.
The crisis is not only economic or energy-related; it is also moral and administrative.
Accumulated inefficiency, lack of foresight, and the inability to sustain basic services have pushed the country to a point where mourning is experienced amid cardboard, blackouts, and official silence.
In Cuba today, it is not just food, medicine, or transportation that is lacking: coffins are also in short supply.
And when a family has to make with their own hands the coffin to bury a loved one, what is revealed is not only material poverty but also the failure of a system that has left the people without resources, without answers, and now, without a dignified final farewell.
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