A family in the Bahía neighborhood of the Habana del Este municipality has been living in a home flooded with sewage and waste for five months due to a project carried out by USM Construcciones Militares for the state-owned company CUPET, which blocked three of the four sewer access points on 4th Street, between 23rd and 24th.
Dalma Rosell Marrero, residing at number 3 on the avenue affected by the flooding, reported in an audio message sent to CiberCuba that the problem began at the end of May when a heavy downpour caused the first flooding. "The house was filled with sewage and feces. It was underwater for two days," she recounted.
According to the explanation, a high-pressure truck sent by the municipal deputy mayor confirmed the cause on-site. Everything indicates that the workers on the site, located at 24th Street corner of 4th, blocked the drainage with dirt and gravel. "Instead of continuing its course, the water bounces back and looks for a way out," notes Rosell Marrero.
The construction that caused the disaster is not intended for popular housing. According to the complainant, the project includes eight buildings designated for CUPET executives in a "privileged circuit" with guaranteed electricity supply. "The executives will sleep without mosquitoes and with light," she bitterly noted, while her family cooks with charcoal and wears rubber boots every time the water floods the ground floor.
The conditions in which the family lives are critical. They sleep on the floor of the upper floor of their home because the ground floor gets flooded every four or five days—or more often if it rains—and water seeps in through toilets, sinks, drains, cracks in the tiles, and the entrance. They lost a refrigerator, a television, and all the toys of their seven-year-old son, who suffers from immunodeficiency, ADHD, and autism. "The child has no toys today because he lost all of them, filled with excrement," lamented the mother. Furthermore, Rosell Marrero mentioned that she contracted hepatitis, unable to determine whether it was due to contact with the contaminated water or from her son's hospitalization at the pediatric hospital in Centro Habana in September.
The family has gone through all available administrative channels without finding a solution. In June, they approached the provincial government, which sent them narrow hose trucks, insufficient for the problem. On July 7, they met with the municipal governor of Havana del Este and other officials. She complains that Resolution 167 requires authorities to respond within 30 days, but at the time of the complaint, they were "a day or two away from 100 days" without any solution.
The complaint was escalated to the president of the provincial government of Havana and to María Cedeño from the State Council. Other residents in the block also suffer from flooding due to the same cause, and Avenue 15 — the dual carriageway — is similarly affected by the obstruction caused by the construction work.
The deterioration of the sewage system in Havana is a systemic problem that has worsened in 2026, with reports of sewage flooding homes documented in several municipalities. Just this Friday, it was reported the death of a three-year-old boy after falling into a sewage pit in Alamar, also in East Havana, highlighting the severity of the health crisis in the area.
CUPET was sanctioned by the United States in June through Executive Order 14404, which accused the regime of using energy resources to support the ruling elite.
The case of the Bahía neighborhood illustrates this logic starkly: while buildings with guaranteed electricity are being constructed for the heads of the state oil company, a family with a sick child sleeps on the floor, with the ground floor of their home surrounded by excrement. “The vulnerable get containers, and they get the best. They are ruining the block,” summarized Rosell Marrero.
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