The human rights organization Cubalex published its monthly report on the situation in Cuba for July 2026 this Monday, a month that saw the highest peak of civil violence since 2022, a rising state repression, and a sustained collapse of basic services.
The document reports 37 homicides in a single month, the highest figure since the organization began its monitoring four years ago. Among these crimes, at least nine femicides were recorded.
There are also four cases of individuals who took their own lives, the highest number this year. Cubalex interprets this data as evidence of a mental health crisis that the State neither acknowledges nor addresses.
"The report notes that citizen violence has reached its highest point since 2022, with 37 homicides, 9 femicides, and 4 suicides, a situation that reveals the fragility of public security and an underreporting of the mental health crisis."
In total, the organization recorded 168 incidents of violence and public insecurity during the month. The majority of the cases involved thefts and assaults with machetes or firearms, primarily targeting individuals in vehicles and aimed at stealing power generation equipment.
The organization emphasizes that the regime's security apparatus deployed forces almost daily, but its goal was to contain protests against power outages, not to halt the rising violence in the country.
In terms of protests, July recorded 199 public demonstrations, a decrease from the 253 documented in June, although the daily average exceeded six.
Havana concentrated 160 of those events, with the highest density in Diez de Octubre, San Miguel del Padrón, and Centro Habana. The peak of the month occurred on July 24, with 25 protests in a single day.
On July 11th—marking the fifth anniversary of the largest social uprising in decades—15 demonstrations were recorded, including two inside penitentiaries. The predominant form of protest was the "cacerolazo," often accompanied by burning garbage and partial road blockades.
The main trigger was the energy and water crisis. In July, there were three total collapses of the National Electric Power System, local blackouts lasting for consecutive days, and three months without drinking water in peripheral areas of the capital.
On the repressive front, the report records 388 events and 817 incidents of harassment against 302 individuals, of whom 58% were members of civil society and 41% were citizens with no organizational ties to the opposition.
The most frequent violations were abuses against persons deprived of liberty (161 incidents), police surveillance operations (98), arbitrary transfers (64), threats or coercion (54), and acts of violence or harassment (48).
Additionally, 44 incidents of arbitrary detentions were documented —with an estimated underreporting of 77 victims— 15 short-term enforced disappearances, and three deaths in custody due to medical negligence in Guantánamo and the Combinado del Este.
The Kilo 8 Special Prison in Camagüey was the prison with the most recorded abuses: 29 incidents. Its director, Leonardo Suárez Reyes, is noted as the most recurrent repressor of the month, with six documented incidents.
The report also includes the forced exile of the artist and political prisoner Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, founder of the San Isidro Movement, who arrived in Miami on July 18 after being taken from the Guanajay prison on the 7th of that month and kept in an unknown location for several days, a situation that Amnesty International described as enforced disappearance.
Cubalex warns that peaks of repression did not coincide with the days of greatest protest, but rather with dates of high political sensitivity for the regime, indicating a preventive strategy based on surveillance and mobility restrictions.
The July report reflects a trend of accelerated deterioration. In the first half of 2026, 1,894 human rights violations were recorded, an increase of 48% compared to the previous semester, averaging more than 10 events daily and a 56% rise in deaths in custody.
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