More than 45 days without electricity, spoiled food, and families forced to face enormous difficulties in meeting their basic needs.
That is the reality faced by numerous residents of the municipality of Remedios, in Villa Clara, as acknowledged by a Cuban state company that shared images of a community initiative to provide food to vulnerable individuals.
The Villa Clara Agroforestry Company reported this Monday on Facebook that the affected families are from areas supplied by electrical circuits 67 and 152, where the lack of power has led to a prolonged deterioration of living conditions.
More than 45 days without electricity have tested the resilience of many families in circuits 67 and 152 of #Remedios, the entity acknowledged.
“Dark nights, lost food, and numerous shortages characterize the daily life of a community facing enormous challenges,” the company admitted.
The message was accompanied by photographs showing several people gathered in a community space, where they are handling and distributing food using containers, buckets, and household utensils.
The images show an elderly woman with a plastic container while other women take part in the preparation and distribution of food. Several neighbors are also seen around a table, in what appears to be a collective food assistance activity.
The scene reflects a difficult reality: families who, after being affected by the lack of electricity for more than a month and a half, need to rely on community initiatives to alleviate their daily needs.
"Amid this reality, the workers of the Forestry Unit, led by their director and a member of the local Defense Council, have extended their hand to the most vulnerable," stated the company in its publication.
The efforts of the workers and neighbors deserve recognition, but the distribution of food does not address the problem that has placed those families in a situation of extreme vulnerability, and it is indeed undeniable evidence of the precariousness faced by the population.
The duration of the blackout also raises questions about the ability of the electrical authorities to repair or replace an essential component of the infrastructure.
The crisis in Remedios had already been publicly reported before the state-owned company acknowledged the duration of the disruptions.
On October 9, a resident reported the prolonged blackouts in Remedios and the lack of explanations regarding the failure of a transformer that left many families without service.
The woman stated that approximately half of the town was affected and questioned the lack of clear information on when a solution would arrive.
Her testimony described issues similar to those now acknowledged by the Agroforestal Company: spoiled food, sleepless hot nights, and particularly serious difficulties for households with children and the elderly.
Unfortunately, the situation in Remedios is not an isolated case within the Cuban electricity crisis. On the contrary, these hardships are increasingly becoming a daily reality.
In July, the Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged that some Cuban communities had gone up to 105 consecutive days without electricity due to failures in special transformers, which are difficult to replace due to the age of the electrical circuits.
Moreover, the collective distribution of food depicted in the photographs from Villa Clara has precedents in other provinces, where cooking for multiple families has become a response to power outages and the scarcity of domestic fuel.
In February, it was documented how community meals prepared with firewood and charcoal had become part of the survival strategies of many Cuban families.
The organization Food Monitor Program warned that these initiatives could no longer be seen solely as traditional activities of togetherness, but also as desperate responses to the lack of electricity, fuel, and food.
In April, a group of Cubans organized a stew to distribute among the most needy neighbors in their community.
On that occasion, some participants brought firewood, others prepared the food, and several took care of keeping the fire lit to cook the communal meal.
The initiative demonstrated the willingness of residents to share their resources, but it also highlighted the difficulties many families face in ensuring their daily food needs are met.
In May, the authorities in Villa Clara promoted the sale of prepared meals as an alternative for families who could not cook due to blackouts and gas shortages.
The offer included soups, ajiaco, broths, and other dishes prepared by state entities, a measure implemented when power outages reached up to 20 hours a day in some areas of the province.
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