A Cuban resident in the town of Guatemala -formerly Preston-, in the municipality of Mayarí, Holguín, posted a video on Facebook where he harshly denounces the living conditions in that community: lacking potable water, electricity, and with a hospital in a dilapidated state.
The author, Pedro Lavié, recorded neighbors gathered on the street looking for water and showcased the local hospital building, which lacks windows and medication.
"Every day the same misery, getting up to watch for a water truck to arrive or paying between 2,000 and 4,000 pesos for two tanks of water," says Lavié at the beginning of the video, which has garnered more than 80,000 views.
The electrical situation is no less serious: according to the author himself, the power is available for only two hours every two days.
"This is how we Cubans live," he states in the recording.
Lavié points the camera at the community hospital and does not hold back: "Look at our hospital, look, it doesn't even have a window, nor any medicine, nor the mother that gave birth to it."
The image conveyed by the video shows dozens of neighbors in the street, filling tanks, buckets, and containers with water from a truck that they had previously paid for.
"This is Cuba, without electricity or water, or communication. The total and absolute misery of a people," concludes Lavié.
What the video shows is not an isolated event. On June 4th, residents of that locality marched to the Police headquarters shouting "We want electricity!" and "We want water!".
On Thursday, residents of Levisa, also in Mayarí, took to the streets to protest for the same reasons.
In March, the municipality had already been the scene of protests after enduring up to 51 hours without electricity.
The Holguín Electric Company admitted in May that it cuts power to entire municipalities to prioritize hospitals and government sites, which explains the extent of the blackouts in communities like Guatemala (Preston).
The link between blackouts and water shortages is direct: 87% of Cuban aqueducts rely on the electrical system, according to UN data, meaning that every power outage corresponds to a simultaneous water shutoff.
At the national level, about 2.7 million Cubans lack regular access to drinking water, and the hydraulic system operates with only 37% of the fuel necessary to pump water.
The hospital deterioration shown in the video is set against a health crisis documented by the UN and WHO: delayed due to power outages and lack of supplies, including over 11,000 children, while five million people with chronic illnesses have their treatments interrupted.
A survey by CubaData this month revealed that 54.2% of respondents faced significant barriers in obtaining medications, a figure that reflects the collapse of a healthcare system that the regime has been presenting as one of its main achievements for decades.
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