On the fifth anniversary of the protests of July 11, 2021, the wife of a political prisoner incarcerated in the Mar Verde prison denounced extreme conditions in that jail in Santiago de Cuba: extreme hunger, a bedbug infestation, and "all kinds of abuse." The inmate himself also appears in the video, which was shared this Saturday with the hashtag #5toAniversario11J.
Yanelis Galván Cusa, wife of political prisoner Ulises Reyes Ramís, stated in a video on X shared by José Daniel Ferrer that her husband has been suffering from "two months of a rotten arm from bug bites and is not receiving medical attention."
"The water they are giving him is as black as mud. For food, they are giving him two bananas and some water of unknown origin," he added.
Galván Cusa reported that during the visit, a prisoner fainted, and his family is threatening to file a lawsuit.
Reyes Ramís and his son Damián have been imprisoned since the end of 2025, accused of painting anti-government graffiti, explained José Daniel Ferrer, who was also incarcerated in Mar Verde.
The testimony arrives on a date steeped in symbolism. Five years ago, Cuba experienced the largest popular protests in decades, with demonstrations in dozens of cities. The regime responded with a massive wave of arrests: hundreds of protesters were imprisoned, many with sentences of up to 25 years, and their families continue to denounce the conditions in which they remain.
Mar Verde is one of the penitentiary facilities most highlighted by human rights organizations in Cuba. It was the detention site of Ferrer García, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), who was imprisoned there during different periods and was ultimately exiled on October 13, 2025, after months of negotiations with the Vatican as an intermediary.
During his last period of confinement in that prison, Ferrer remained in deplorable conditions: his cell housed six inmates in extreme overcrowding and suffocating heat, he suffered from diarrhea for 31 days, had injuries on his scalp, and did not receive adequate medical attention. In June 2025, he began a hunger strike to denounce torture, isolation, and severe malnutrition.
His wife, Nelva Ortega, had described the situation starkly in a testimony collected by Infobae: “They are burying him alive”. In October 2024, Ortega protested in front of the Mar Verde gates in the rain, demanding information about her husband's health.
The complaints about the conditions in that prison are not new. Five officials from Mar Verde were included in the List of Repressors by the Human Rights Foundation in Cuba on July 12, 2025, for their involvement in beatings and torture against inmates.
The conditions described in the video this Saturday align with a documented pattern throughout the Cuban prison system. The Cuban Prison Documentation Center reported in July 2024 poor nutrition leading to hunger, as well as the proliferation of bedbugs, cockroaches, and diseases such as dengue and tuberculosis in the island's prisons.
In July 2023, at least 36 inmates went on a hunger strike in tribute to the anniversary of 11J; in 2024, there were at least 22. The political prisoner Yan Carlos González died in July 2025 as a result of a prolonged hunger strike in prison.
According to Prisoners Defenders, Cuba has a historical record of more than 1,207 political prisoners at the beginning of 2026, many of whom were convicted for participating in the protests of July 11 and are being held in conditions that their families continue to denounce five years later.
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