A resident of Pinar del Río had to move the funeral planters of several deceased relatives to his own living room to protect them from thieves who operate with impunity in the Alameda cemetery, as he reported on Facebook this Friday.
Pepe Morejón Morejón, a professor and translator, retired worker from Radio Guamá, reported this Friday on Facebook the systematic theft of planters in the family vault of that cemetery, also known as the metropolitan cemetery or "old cemetery."
"The constant looting of the planters at the metropolitan cemetery, or the cemetery of Alameda, has forced me to break sentimental family traditions that date back to 1961 when my grandfather Francisco passed away, and each year we have gone to pay tribute to him and those who have passed since," Morejón wrote in his post, shared in the context of the Day of the Faithful Departed, a date when Cuban families traditionally visit cemeteries to honor their dead.
During the course of 2026, three planters disappeared from the family vault, reported the bereaved. The first theft was detected on Father's Day: the planter of his father, Ramón Morejón Cabrera, who passed away in 2012, had vanished. Morejón filed a report at that time and directed the complaint to both municipal and provincial Communal Services, but received no response.
On November 2, during a visit to the cemetery, he discovered that the planters of his grandmother Apolonia Cabrera—who passed away in 1995—and his uncle Ciro Carmona, who died in 2008, had also been stolen.
In light of the repeated thefts and institutional silence, the family made a decision that Morejón himself described as drastic: to preemptively remove the funeral vases that still remained in the cemetery. "With all due respect to my deceased, the six that were left were collected and kept in my home, until we see if one day they can return to their place and continue accompanying our loved ones," he explained.
Morejón was emphatic in pointing out the inaction of the authorities: "The community has taken no action whatsoever, and they haven't offered any words to soothe wounded hearts. The police, so efficient at times for other types of crimes, maintain absolute inaction for this one, which doesn't exceed their financial parameters." He emphasized the emotional weight of what has happened: "My family not only has to break traditions; psychologically, the damage is enormous. The pain we experience at the moment of farewell to each one of us resurfaces."
The case of Pinar del Río is not an isolated incident. In Guáimaro (Camagüey), a family reported in September the theft of the gate of their vault, the third such incident this year. In Yaguajay (Sancti Spíritus), a father reported that workers from the cemetery used a forged key to steal sentimental items from his son's vault; meanwhile, in Cárdenas (Matanzas), open vaults and exposed bones have been documented in the cemetery.
The activist Lara Crofs (Yamilka Lafita) described Cuban funeral services in September as "completely collapsed," caught in "a macabre chain of bribery, favors, connections, and the trafficking of needs, where a family's pain becomes a commodity."
The Cuban Observatory of Citizen Auditing documented 2,833 crime reports in Cuba during 2025, a 115% increase compared to the previous year, with 1,536 thefts topping the records.
Morejón concluded her complaint with a question that directly challenges the authorities: “Will that be the measure that each family will have to take to cut off the supply of raw material to the vandals of the Alameda cemetery?”.
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