A horse used to pull a cart was struck down in the street in Bayamo after refusing to continue a route to the provincial hospital Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, in an incident that the official newspaper La Demajagua reported on Saturday as part of a daily pattern of cruelty towards draft animals in the Monument City.
The animal left the railway's stable and soon returned to its starting point. The coachman tried to make it move several times and ended up hitting it, despite the passengers' warnings asking him not to mistreat it. When the horse backed up and crashed the vehicle against the sidewalk, the passengers got off due to the danger.
A second car transported the people, while the horse remained still in its place. According to the report, the passengers were unaware of what their final destination was.
According to the press, the people of Bayamo witness daily how the horses that pull carriages, the main means of transport in the city due to the fuel crisis and rising prices, are subjected to "blows, whips, excessive weight, long working hours, and even verbal abuse, as if they understood the frustrations of their handlers."
Since 2021, Cuba has been enforcing Decree Law No. 31 on Animal Welfare, which prohibits mistreatment, abuse, torture, abandonment, and cruel killing of animals.
The regulation also establishes that working animals must have their work time and intensity limited, receive appropriate nutrition, and have rest periods.
The regulations of that legislation include violations and penalties that can reach 4,000 pesos. However, the newspaper reported that the horses used as the primary means of transport for many residents of Bayamo continue to be subject to various forms of abuse, excessive weight, prolonged work hours, and other maltreatment.
The regulations hold the National Center for Animal Health of the Ministry of Agriculture responsible for directing, executing, implementing, and overseeing animal welfare policy in collaboration with other institutions.
The persistence of these scenes raises a question that the report itself poses without an answer: who watches over the enforcement of legislation in Bayamo that, at least on paper, should protect these animals?
The mistreatment of draft horses is a phenomenon that occurs throughout the country. In May, a carriage driver in Holguín whipped an exhausted horse that had fallen on the public road for over an hour, an incident reported by the organization Bienestar Animal Cuba.
That same month, a horse collapsed in Sancti Spíritus due to a probable heat stroke before any veterinarian could reach the site.
A structural factor worsens the problem, as animal mistreatment is not classified as a crime in the Cuban Penal Code. The penalties are exclusively administrative, and animal advocates have been demanding for years that it be included in criminal legislation, as the current fines are considered inadequate to deter offenders.
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