A tumultuous early morning shook the popular council Vista Hermosa in Santiago de Cuba this Friday, as knife-point robberies and a fire at a small garbage dump prompted intervention from both the National Revolutionary Police and the Fire Department in the early hours.
The events occurred around 3:00 am, according to the report by Aris Arias Batalla, provincial head of Operations and Relief for the Red Cross branch, who documented the scene in real-time.
The police operation began with a vehicle chase: the patrol car identified as unit 564 pursued a cellphone thief whose victim was a resident of the Trocha neighborhood, adjacent to Vista Hermosa.
During the escape, one of the criminals threw a green bag at the corner of 5th Street between B and C. The suspect managed to flee, but the officers returned to the scene and recovered the bag, which contained two cell phones and a knife.
The same patrol officer was already transporting another detainee who was also found with a knife. At the time of the report, it was unclear whether the two individuals were connected.
While the operation was underway, just a block away, neighbors began shouting "Fire!": the solid waste dump located at the corner of A Street and 3rd Street was burning, putting several nearby houses and a wooden utility pole at risk.
The Provincial Command 4 of the Fire Department responded quickly and extinguished the flames before the fire spread to the buildings or damaged the electrical infrastructure.
Arias Batalla described the fire as "a social indiscipline perpetrated by unscrupulous individuals who endanger lives, homes, and communities."
What happened early this morning is not an isolated incident. In February 2026, neighbors in Vista Hermosa detained an alleged thief at 2:03 am and handed him over to the police due to the delay in their response, and in April of the same year, similar scenes were repeated in the neighborhood and in other areas of the city.
The garbage crisis is not new either. In June 2026, the Catholic Church of Santiago made a public appeal to the government regarding the accumulation of waste and a fire in a garbage dump that impacted a parish celebration.
In September 2025, another fierce fire caused by accumulated garbage affected the city.
At the provincial level, the Cuban Citizen Audit Observatory documented a total of 2,833 crimes in Cuba in 2025, with 1,536 thefts, making Santiago de Cuba the fourth most affected province with 323 verified cases.
At the close of the report, the "rake operation" —a police deployment aimed at maintaining public order in urban areas— remained active and on alert in the Vista Hermosa popular council.
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