A Cuban family publicly reported the vandalism and desecration of family niches in the Colón Cemetery in Havana, in a video that traverses the private area where the remains of their grandparents and other relatives rest.
The post was made on Monday by Ingrid Torres on Facebook, who tagged Gloria Ordaz and more than 20 other people. In the video, the man walks through the site where his loved ones rest and shows completely shattered niches, broken covers, bone remains, and funeral objects scattered on the ground.
"Last Sunday, Ingrid and I came by, it was closed and this wasn't here, this happened this week," the man recounts as he records the footage.
The vandals tried to open the niches of the grandmother—whom the family calls "Mima"—and "Pipo," but they were unable to do so because they had been previously cemented. "Look at how they broke Mima's, but I had cemented it, and they couldn't get it out," says the family member through tears. Other niches in the area, belonging to the grandfather and Uncle Julio, did suffer serious damage.
"This is the society we built, this is the society they claim is good... there is no dignity, not even for the dead," the man in the video states, visibly distressed.
Ingrid Torres accompanied the images with a text linking the incident to the country's systemic crisis: "There are no values or respect even for the dead. It is hard to see how humanity has been degraded to the point of doing this." She also pointed out that the vandalized area is a "private space within the Colón Cemetery" where her paternal grandparents and other family members rest.
The complaint is not an isolated case. In April 2026, independent journalist Camila Acosta documented human remains scattered among rubble within the Colón Cemetery itself. In January of that same year, the family of musician Paulito FG reported vandalism at his grave within the same grounds.
In February 2026, the municipal cemetery of Mayabe, in Holguín, was reported for broken niches and exposed human remains. In May, theft of marble planters and the destruction of toys at a little girl's grave was reported in Pinar del Río.
The pattern is driven by multiple motivations: the theft of construction materials such as marble, bronze, and iron, as well as, in some cases, the theft of bone remnants related to Afro-Cuban religious practices. The economic crisis exacerbates the situation by decreasing surveillance and institutional maintenance.
The Christoph Columbus Necropolis, founded in 1876 and declared a National Monument, is the main cemetery in Havana and one of the most important in Latin America. Despite its heritage value, the Cuban regime acknowledged in 2018 that over 800 cemeteries in the country were in a state of collapse. Since then, complaints have multiplied across all provinces without the Community Services authorities providing effective responses.
"We need to recover the Cuban from 68 years ago: respectful, hard-working, with strong words, a fighter, and above all, family-oriented. Today in Cuba, there is a situation of survival," wrote Torres.
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