The analyst Frank Rodríguez raised an alarming report summarizing the extent of collapse that Cuba has reached: in several cities across the island, the deceased are being buried in mass graves because families cannot afford a coffin, a funeral home, or even the presence of a priest.
"I've been told that in some cities, they're burying people in mass graves because there's no money for coffins, no funds for funerals, no flowers, and certainly no way to call a priest; you simply die, and that's the end of it," Rodríguez stated from Miami.
The report is not an isolated case. The collapse of funeral services in Cuba has been documented for months. In February of this year, a family in Velasco, Gibara (Holguín) improvised a coffin made of cardboard and adhesive tape due to the complete lack of coffins at the local funeral home.
In April, burials at the Vicente García cemetery in Las Tunas were suspended due to capacity collapse, forcing families to travel to Camagüey or Santiago de Cuba.
On September 1, the cemetery in Las Tunas itself requested families to retrieve the remains of their deceased. Days later, activist Lara Crofs made it clear: “Funeral services are completely overwhelmed”, and she warned that a dignified burial depends on informal payments or the connections the family may have.
On October 3rd, a corpse was found in the sun, surrounded by garbage and neglect in Havana, an image that encapsulated in a single photograph the degradation that death has reached in Cuba.
According to a research by El Toque, Cuban authorities reject the term "mass graves," but acknowledge that burials are being carried out in newly designated areas due to the collapse of the system, based on technical cemetery regulations from 2007.
Rodríguez did not hold back in his harsh description of the situation: "We are returning to agonizing things, incredible things. And every day we will learn about more horrific things." He went further: "Cuba has literally died, and what we are doing is smelling the stench that it needs to be buried urgently. There will be no wake, there will be nothing."
In the same discussion, the writer Camilo Venegas, from the Dominican Republic, referred to those who are suffering the most from this crisis. Although the crisis affects the entire population, Afro-Cubans bear the heaviest burden: data from 2026 indicates that 68% of the Afro-descendant population faced difficulties in obtaining basic goods, compared to 61% of the general population.
Venegas was straightforward about the historical responsibility of the regime. "I don't really believe that serious policies were truly implemented within the Revolution to help a significant portion of the Afro-descendant population escape poverty. And they have always been the most vulnerable. They never ceased to be so throughout the entire Revolution."
The writer also noted that cuarterías—precarious collective housing where poverty is concentrated—never disappeared: "It's true that the kind of apartheid that existed before is gone. It's true that many things have changed, but the most vulnerable have never ceased to exist."
The UN warned in 2018 that racism and structural discrimination persist in Cuba against Afro-descendants, who face fewer job opportunities, low representation in decision-making positions, and higher levels of poverty—a reality that the current crisis has only exacerbated.
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