Tania is 29 years old, has a small daughter, tickets for the two of them to fly to Nicaragua with a stopover in Panama and five days of waiting, with their respective nights, camping in front of the embassy of that last country in Havana.
His objective, like that of the more than one hundred people who were waiting this Saturday in the Miramar park in the Cuban capital, is to obtain the transit visa that Panama announced this week by surprise for Cuban nationals passing through the Central American country on their way to a third destination, almost in all cases, Nicaragua.
“I’ve been sleeping here for five nights,” this young Cuban woman assures Efe, with her cell phone in one hand and the necessary documents in the other, already in line to access the diplomatic mission.
An official from the Panamanian consulate then passes by her shouting “the 22nd, the 23rd, the 24th!”, evidencing an organization that was lacking in the previous days, when scenes of chaos and uncertainty.
In the early hours of Saturday morning, all Cubans with tickets for April 1 finished agreeing to request their visa and those who will fly on April 2 began to register.
These are the most affected, since they lose the subsequent connections that they had purchased with other airlines, with high prices due to the pandemic, and any other type of reservations.
Panama announced the new requirement on Tuesday, joining other countries such as Puerto Rico and Colombia, which in recent weeks have adopted measures that make it difficult for Cubans to transit through their territory. Given the complaints and after maintaining contacts with the Cuban government, Panama delayed the entry into force of the measure from the 13th to the 16th of this month.
But Cubans who planned to travel between March 16 and 31 must reschedule their flights with the Copa airline, which offers connections sometimes for two or more months, and process their visas, which cost $50.
These are the most affected, since they lose the subsequent connections that they had purchased with other airlines, with high prices due to the pandemic, and any other type of reservations and agreements.
Others affected are Cubans residing in Argentina, Chile and Brazil who were on vacation visiting their relatives in Havana, as is the case of Hugo and Heysi.
“They are giving out tickets for May and June,” a 46-year-old woman from Havana who goes by the name of Carmen and who, like all the other interviewees, prefers not to give her full name or be recorded, explains to Efe.
“There is a lot of money already invested in this and I don’t want my face or my name to appear anywhere and that they can, what do I know, deny my visa,” he says.
She wanted to travel to Managua to buy goods there and resell them in Cuba, taking advantage, like other fellow citizens, that Nicaragua has not required a visa from Cubans since last November.
Most of those gathered in front of the Panamanian embassy, many of them young people like Yudel, Alexandra and Eberto, have Nicaragua as their destination and all say when asked that their goal is to “turn to Cuba” later.
However, Nicaragua has become, since it withdrew the visa requirement for Cubans, the starting point for many of them on the Central American route to migrate to the United States irregularly.
Cuban migratory pressure has grown noticeably in recent months, the statistics indicate.
According to the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), 9,827 Cuban immigrants were detained last January, nearly 13 times more than the 732 in the same month of 2020.
In addition, more than a thousand Cuban migrants have been returned to their country so far this year from the US, Mexico and the Bahamas. In the first two months of the year alone, more than 43% of all migrants returned in 2021 have been registered.
The Spanish agency Efe and other international media were summoned this Friday by the Havana authorities themselves to attend the announcement by officials from the Panamanian diplomatic headquarters. The place has been heavily guarded since Thursday by a police operation that prevents access to the surrounding streets not only to the independent press but to any ordinary citizen.
________________________
Collaborate with our work:
The team of 14ymedio is committed to doing serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of our newspaper. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
