Lieutenant Colonel William González Hernández, head of the Provincial Civil Defense Office of Matanzas, urged the population to prepare an emergency backpack with medications, clothing, a flashlight, water, and food in anticipation of a possible cyclone.
The call unleashed a wave of outrage on social media: Cubans pointed out the cruel irony of the regime asking for something that does not exist.
"Our population is a wise one that knows the family guidelines to follow in the event of a hydrometeorological event, preparing a backpack with medications, clothes, a flashlight, water, and some food," González stated in the video.
The reactions came quickly. "Medicines, food, and water to store. If there isn't even enough to use in the moment, how are we going to store it?", wrote a user.
Another summarized the general sentiment: "An empty backpack, how outrageous." A third person was more direct: "There's not even water. Let alone talking about medications."
"We already have the cyclone," wrote a user under the video. "Words cannot describe what we are experiencing. My God, how much longer do we have to endure?"
The context in which the call occurs makes it even harder to overlook the contradiction: 461 of the 651 medicines in the Basic Drug List—over 70%— were completely unavailable or had low availability in Cuban state pharmacies, according to official data.
In terms of food, a national survey presented in May revealed that 33.9% of Cuban households have at least one member who goes to bed hungry, and that 94.9% of respondents lost access to food purchases over the past year.
Matanzas, the province where the video was released, is one of the five provinces with critical levels of food insecurity according to the Food Monitor Program, along with Havana, Cienfuegos, Guantánamo, and Santiago de Cuba.
However, the discourse around the "emergency backpack" is not new. In May, the Civil Defense distributed a family guide with nearly identical recommendations —bread, cereals, canned goods, medications— as part of the "Year of Preparation for Defense" declared by the regime.
Now that same language is being recycled for the hurricane season, with the same underlying problem: the State is asking to conserve what it has been unable to provide.
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