The Argentine journalist Carolina Amoroso described in an interview with Tania Costa the current state of Havana as "a postcard from a place at war" after walking through its streets to film the documentary "Cuba, the island that is fading away", which was filmed clandestinely over a week with a tourist visa on the Island.
Amoroso, correspondent for TN and Canal 13 of Argentina, made the comparison while referring to the buildings reduced to rubble that he found in the neighborhoods he toured with his cameraman, Juan Pablo Chávez.
"For a moment, it seems like the postcard of a war-torn place; there are buildings reduced to rubble," the journalist stated, adding that the most painful part is that "the city that once was can still be seen; the beauty of the city that was and is no longer, but once was."
The image evoked an unexpected feeling in him. "For me, someone who didn't know Havana in the past, it brings a sense of nostalgia for the city I never saw."
It is not the first time that this war metaphor has been used to describe the Cuban capital. In April, Cuban architect Ileana Pérez Drago stated that "the photos you see of Havana look like a bombarded city, it seems like a war has taken place."
The data supports that perception. In Havana, around 1,000 buildings collapse each year, the national housing deficit exceeds 900,000 homes, and 35% of the housing stock is in fair or poor condition. In 2025, Cuba only fulfilled 22% of its annual housing construction plan.
The collapses have also claimed lives. In November 2025, a mother and her son died due to the collapse of a building on Compostela Street, in Old Havana.
During the interview, journalist Tania Costa asked Amoroso if he had felt afraid walking at night through poorer neighborhoods in the capital, noting that "crime rates have risen significantly in Cuba, people have nothing," and that the journalist was still just a tourist with money.
Amoroso distinguished two types of fear. Among people, none. "Not me; I didn't feel fear among people, I didn't experience fear. In fact, I felt well treated by the people and welcomed by those we spoke with."
The real fear was institutional. "The fear that, as we were doing the registration we were conducting, we could be, I don't know, detained, interrogated, that they would take our material away."
This risk was concrete. The explosive increase in crime in Cuba coexists with a repression that has not eased. The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Audit recorded 2,833 verified crimes in 2025, which is a 115% increase compared to 2024, with thefts being the most frequent crime, 1,536 cases, a 479% increase compared to 2023.
Amoroso and his cameraman tackled the shoot drawing on their previous experience in hostile environments. The journalist has covered the conflict in Ukraine on four occasions since the onset of the large-scale Russian invasion, as well as Venezuela, which she describes as an analogous setting in terms of repressive logic and the curtailment of freedom of expression.
The documentary, aired on TN, Telenoche de Canal 13, and the Aura platform, was born from Amoroso's desire to counteract "a certain very romanticized view of Cuba" prevalent in sectors of the Argentine artistic and academic community, and to showcase "a drama that has been ongoing for decades and has a particularly severe expression now."
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