A family from Cárdenas, Matanzas, experienced one of the most terrifying situations imaginable this Sunday: in the early morning hours, intruders entered their home to steal and roamed the rooms where their children were sleeping.
According to the testimony collected by reporter Christian Arbolaez, the robbery occurred around 3:00 am at a house on Cristina Street, between Spriú and San José.
The intruders forced the metal door —leaving a visible hole where the lock was and the upper glass shattered— and entered the house without anyone being able to stop them.
The occupants realized there were people inside, but fear completely paralyzed them. None of them got out of bed while the thieves ransacked the house and took their belongings.
Among the stolen items are an EcoFlow—a high-value portable battery that many Cuban families purchase to survive power outages—a scooter, a PlayStation, keys, jewelry, meats, rice, and other goods.
What exacerbates the situation is the response from the authorities: the family went to report the theft to the police at around 4:00 am., but by 11:30 in the morning—more than seven hours later—no officer had arrived at the home.
Arbolaez, who systematically documents the wave of crime in the municipality, raised the question that many residents of Cárdenas ask: "How can the population feel protected if, after reporting a robbery, they can wait for hours for the authorities to arrive?"
This case is not isolated. At the beginning of August, the private business Mercado Real was robbed for the second time in less than a year in Cárdenas, and the police took more than three hours to respond after the victims made two visits to the station.
The agents indicated to them that, being a private business, the responsibility for protecting it rested with themselves.
In July, in the absence of a police response, neighbors from the Fructuoso Rodríguez neighborhood captured and tied up an alleged thief on their own. "It was the neighbors themselves who managed to catch him, while the authorities had yet to arrive on the scene," Arbolaez noted at the time.
The timeline of serious incidents in Cárdenas during 2026 also includes a armed robbery at an ice cream factory in April, the theft of solar panels from the Maternal Home in July, and at the end of 2025, a violent assault on a couple in Boca de Camarioca that resulted in severe injuries.
The decline in public safety in Cárdenas reflects a provincial and national trend.
The Cuban Citizen Audit Observatory recorded 2,833 verified crimes in Cuba during 2025, a 115% increase compared to 2024, with thefts being the most common crime at 1,536 cases. Matanzas topped the national ranking with 503 verified crimes that year.
Fortunately, no injuries were reported this Sunday. However, the emotional damage is hard to quantify: a family that knows strangers were just a few meters away from where their children were sleeping, and when they sought help from the state, no one came.
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