A Cuban shared this week a video on Facebook that went viral with thousands of views, in which she denounces how sewage floods a large stretch of a street on the Island, where, worryingly, educational institutions for children are located.
"Look at this. It’s from here all the way down the street; there’s even a circle in that block and a high school and all that, right down there, it’s filled with sewage water. It’s a terrible mess. Look at this," says the woman in the reel, published under the profile La negri cubana.
The complaint sparked comments and dozens of reactions from Cubans who recognize the situation as something common and widespread across the country, not an isolated incident. Internet users responded with a mix of outrage, irony, and resignation. "That's not strange anymore, all of Cuba is like this, it must be the blockade," wrote one user sarcastically. Another was more direct and called on the president of the republic: "Díaz-Canel, focus on this instead of the other things." A third warned about the consequences: "My God, that's why there are so many illnesses."
Several commentators confirmed that the problem repeats itself in their own communities. A user from Las Tunas wrote that foul-smelling black water and millions of bacteria are circulating around child care centers, schools, and neighborhoods. Another pointed out that Guanabo has been "like this for over 25 years, and it doesn't matter to anyone."
One of the most revealing testimonies came from an internet user who recounted living for 24 years next to a foul sewer in Luyanó, Havana, since 1972: "It only stopped running when, in the 90s, there was no more running water. It's the consequences of communism, not the blockade."
The video reflects a structural crisis that the Cuban regime has been unable to resolve for decades. Only a small percentage of the Cuban population is connected to a functional sewage system, according to researchers' data. Obsolete pipes, lack of maintenance, and chronic blackouts that paralyze water pumps have turned sewage leaks into a constant issue in neighborhoods of Havana, Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas, Holguín, Matanzas, and other provinces.
The health consequences are severe and well-documented. An outbreak of hepatitis A in Cienfuegos affected thousands of people in 2024 due to the mixing of sewage with drinking water. In January 2026, patients at Hospital Juan Bruno Zayas in Santiago de Cuba reported sewage leaking beneath their beds. The national survey MICS7, conducted with UNICEF since November 2025, detected for the first time E. coli in Cuban households, officially recognizing a crisis that the government had downplayed for years.
In 2025, more than 860,000 Cubans were affected by water shortages, and in April 2026, 300,000 people in Matanzas were still without stable access to drinking water, according to data from the National Institute of Hydraulic Resources.
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