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Violeta Rodríguez Denis, 63 years old and a resident of the village of Alacranes, municipality of Unión de Reyes, Matanzas, has been missing for five days after leaving her home on June 18th, around 4:00 pm, heading towards an area of woods to look for charcoal and not returning.
The alert was shared on Facebook by local journalist Hanoi Moreno Enriquez and amplified by the Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (OGAT), which activated its #AlertaYeniset mechanism for the case.
At the time of her disappearance, Violeta was wearing a red blouse, gray shorts, and sneakers.
His family members warn that, although he has not been diagnosed with a mental illness, "he may sometimes display some degree of disorientation, which raises concerns that he may have encountered some mishap or could be lost and in need of assistance."
Anyone with information regarding the whereabouts of Violeta can contact the phones 54882828 and 53121021.
"Her family is experiencing moments of immense anguish and despair. With each passing minute, the concern grows for those who love her and hope for her safe return," warned user Mara Alvarez on Facebook.
The fact that a 63-year-old woman had to enter the woods alone to gather charcoal is not an isolated incident: it reflects the energy crisis that the Cuban regime has imposed on the population.
In the face of a shortage of liquefied gas and electricity, millions of Cubans have returned to cooking with charcoal or firewood, reviving the hardships of the Special Period in the 1990s.
The elderly are the most affected group: a quarter of the Cuban population is over 60 years old, pensions amount to just nine or ten dollars a month, and the massive exodus of young people has left thousands of seniors without family support networks.
The search for Violeta, as is the case with most similar situations in Cuba, falls entirely on the citizens and civil society, since the regime does not have an official search protocol or a public registry of the missing, and there is no alert system comparable to Amber Alert.
The pattern is repeated with the elderly: last April, Carlos Clavel Camejo disappeared in Santiago de Cuba and was found dead by fishermen four days later, with his family receiving no effective assistance from the authorities.
In March 2024, the elderly Paulina Collazo Diago, who suffered from dementia, was found dead in Los Arabos, Matanzas, with the cause of her death yet to be determined.
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