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A photograph posted in the Facebook group "REVOLICO EN EL COTORRO" shows a long line of Cubans waiting in front of the bank on 71st Street, in the municipality of El Cotorro, located in the southeast of Havana, surrounded by mud, puddles, and sewage water on an unpaved dirt road.
The image, which garnered over 1,187 reactions, encapsulates in a single frame the triple crisis facing Cuba: banking collapse, extreme urban decay, and widespread poverty among the population.
The scene is not exceptional. Since April 2026, queues at banks throughout Cuba have become a common sight, with waits of four to six hours primarily comprised of retirees trying to collect their pensions.
Last Friday, a scuffle broke out in front of a Banco Metropolitano branch in Old Havana, where people were shouting that "there's no money, there's nothing."
On Monday, it was reported how the regime disabled ATMs in Havana to prevent people from getting upset, which resulted in even more chaos.
Retirement pensions in Cuba range from 3,056 to 4,000 pesos monthly following the partial increase implemented in September 2025, equivalent to less than 10 dollars on the informal market.
A commentator illustrated it starkly: "Look at that crowd on the bench trying to see if they can collect some money, which isn't even enough to buy a bag of charcoal, priced over 4,000 pesos per bag."
Cubans who reacted to the post did not hold back in their descriptions of what they see.
"This street is hard to believe that it belongs to this century. It's inexplicable. It's the bank, the trash, the street, the puddle of water... Everything is a mess," wrote a user.
Another person pointed out the human drama behind the image: "It's not just how terrible the streets are. It's unfortunate that people spend hours trying to withdraw some money to survive. This is too much. How long will this go on?"
Some comments reflected the despair of those who know the place firsthand. "It looks like a cart path for oxen, so beautiful was my Cotorro," lamented a resident. Another was more succinct: "That looks like another planet."
A commentator noted that the situation in the nearby municipality of Boyeros is even worse: "Multiply the number of people there by four."
The ordeal of Cuban retirees trying to collect their pension intensified since 2023 with the so-called "bankarization," a policy of the Central Bank that promoted digital payments but did not address the shortage of physical cash. Since August of that year, a limit of 5,000 pesos per transaction has been in effect at ATMs.
As a synthesis of collective sentiment, a user wrote: "Our grandparents dying in permanent agony, the youth without a future, the children without a glass of milk. A country in flight... An expression of the humanitarian disaster occurring in Cuba."
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