A Cuban grandmother identified as Marta starred in an emotional and powerful video in which she breaks down in tears while vehemently denouncing the decades of misery experienced by the Cuban people under the dictatorship, in a clip posted this past Sunday on Instagram by content creator @elchicosandyoficial.
No one knows anything about Cuba, the only one who knows is me, said Marta, who grew up there since she was a child, reflecting on what she witnessed. "My mother never saw anything good. My mother only lived in a state of never having sugar, crying. Oh, where can I find sugar? My mom would tell me," she recounts through sobs.
The statement that had the most impact was direct and straightforward: "There are still people who support that. There are still people who don't know what that is."
In the video lasting one minute and 46 seconds, Marta also lashes out at the leaders of Mexico, Brazil, and Spain for sympathizing with the regime or failing to condemn it, wishing that "they would go to Cuba or take their families there to let them die of hunger and darkness."
At the same time, she issues a desperate call to those she considers allies of the Cuban cause: "When are you going to do something for that country? Help us, Mr. Antrón, help us, Marco Rubio, and help us, Bukele, this old Cuban is asking you."
The elderly woman pleads for that help to arrive even if she doesn’t live to see it. "Bukele, help us, help us Cubans, even if I don’t see it, but let the children, the young people see it," she implores, before describing the desperation of the mothers on the island: "How many desperate mothers have neither a glass of milk nor a loaf of bread to give their children."
Marta also holds Cuban communism responsible for exporting its model of destruction: "They filled the whole world with communism. They destroyed Venezuela. They destroyed Nicaragua."
At the end of the clip, a voice off-camera tries to soothe her: "Alright, now, calm down, Marta, calm down. God will work in His time."
Marta's testimony reflects a humanitarian crisis that 80% of Cubans consider worse than the Special Period of the 1990s, according to data from the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights in March 2026. Seven out of ten Cubans have skipped breakfast, lunch, or dinner at least once due to lack of money or shortages, a figure that rises to eight out of ten among those over 61 years old.
The mention of sugar is not incidental: the Cuban sugar industry is currently experiencing its worst performance in over 125 years, even lower than that of 1899, and the rationing of the product intensified in April 2026. Additionally, there are blackouts of up to 25 hours a day and a GDP decline exceeding 4%, acknowledged by Díaz-Canel in December 2025.
"I no longer live by day or by night. I only think about when the day will come. Get those bandits out of there," concludes Marta, summarizing in a few words the exhaustion of an entire generation that lived through and survived six decades of dictatorship.
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