A family from Cárdenas, Matanzas, experienced one of the most terrifying situations imaginable this Sunday: in the dead of night, intruders entered their home to rob it and went through the rooms where their children were sleeping.
According to the testimony collected by content creator Christian Arbolaez, the robbery happened around 3:00 am at a residence on Cristina Street, between Spriú and San José.
The intruders forced open 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 home and took their belongings.
Among the items stolen are an EcoFlow—a high-value portable battery that many Cuban families acquire to endure blackouts—a motorbike, 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 a.m., but by 11:30 a.m.—more than seven hours later—not a single officer had arrived at their home.
Arbolaez, who systematically documents the crime wave in the municipality, posed the question that many residents of Cárdenas are asking: "How can the population feel safe when, after reporting a robbery, they may spend hours waiting for the authorities to arrive?"
This case is not isolated. At the beginning of August, the private business Mercado Real was burglarized 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, since it was a private business, the responsibility for protecting it fell on them.
In July, in the absence of a police response, residents in the Fructuoso Rodríguez neighborhood captured and bound a suspected thief on their own. "It was the neighbors who managed to catch him, while the authorities had not yet arrived at the scene," Arbolaez noted at the time.
The timeline of serious incidents in Cárdenas during 2026 also includes an armed assault on an ice cream factory and the theft of solar panels from the Maternal Home. Meanwhile, at the end of 2025, the violent assault on a couple in Boca de Camarioca resulted in serious injuries.
The decline in public safety in Cárdenas reflects a national trend. The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing reported 2,833 verified crimes in Cuba during 2025, an increase of 115% compared to 2024, with theft being the most common crime at 1,536 cases. Matanzas topped the national ranking with 503 verified crimes that year.
Fortunately, there were no injuries 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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