A mother in Camagüey filmed and published a video this Thursday in which she denounces the forced transport of young recruits in a truck, allegedly heading to Havana, in what she described as an operation reminiscent of the transport of prisoners.
The images, shared by the Instagram account Cuba Noticias Viral, show the woman filming the vehicle while confronting the present officers and asserting her right to document the scene against those who are trying to stop her.
"Look, here comes the recruitment truck they're sending to Havana. It's mandatory, because no child is going to..." the woman says at the beginning of the video before being interrupted.
When someone tries to dissuade her from recording, she responds, "Why can't I record? I'm going to record because I need to see that. They are taking the children on their way."
At the end of the video, the mother makes a direct accusation against the uniformed officers: "There go the repressors. Look here, they are full of repressors. All of them, they are all repressors, carrying them as if they were prisoners."
The video comes at a time of growing public outrage over forced recruitment. Just two days prior, the Ministry of Revolutionary Armed Forces (MINFAR) posted on social media a message boasting about the basic training of recruits, which sparked a wave of criticism in which citizens described the process as "forcing children into service."
On July 9, a post about recruitment in Bayamo, in the province of Granma, had generated similar reactions, with Cubans describing the process as "taking them to the slaughterhouse".
The pattern of complaints is repeating in several provinces. In January and February of this year, families from Santiago de Cuba reported a lack of transparency in the transportation of recruits: young people taken without basic belongings and without their families receiving information about their whereabouts.
The opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer, from the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), raised the alarm about forced recruitments in Santiago de Cuba on February 1, urging mothers to defend their children.
Active Military Service in Cuba is mandatory for men aged 17 to 28 according to the National Defense Law, with a duration of two years.
The regime does not recognize conscientious objection, and the current Penal Code sanctions evasion with a prison sentence of six months to one year. Despite this, a Cuban diplomat stated before the UN in 2022 that "children are not and will not be recruited," contradicting the country's own legislation.
The consequences of the service have been lethal. Between 2018 and early 2026, at least 67 recruit deaths were documented: 27 by suicide, 16 due to negligence, 14 in accidents, four from denial of medical care, and three homicides. In 2025 alone, 19 young people lost their lives.
Among the most recent cases is that of Dailier Rodríguez Tamayo, 19 years old, who passed away in March 2026 in Havana despite having a medical report that prohibited him from carrying weapons or being subjected to stress, and that of Abraham Limonta Estrada, 17 years old, who died by suicide in February 2026 in a military unit in Guantánamo, just three months after joining.
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