Luis Manuel Borges Álvarz was the boatman of a boat sunk on October 28, 2022 by members of the Cuban Border Guard Troops in Bahía Honda.
HAVANA, Cuba. – The political prisoner Luis Manuel Borges Álvarez was transferred from the Combinado del Este to the Provincial Prison of Camagüey, Kilo 8, according to what he himself reported in a telephone conversation with CubaNetlast Tuesday, November 25.
Borges Álvarez (alias El Pollo), 47 years old, is a native of Los Palacios, in the province of Pinar del Río. At the time of his arrest, he resided in Miami, United States. He was the boatman of a vessel sunk on October 28, 2022 by members of the Cuban Border Guard Troops in Bahía Honda, Artemisa. In the event, seven people lost their lives, including a two-year-old girl.
The political prisoner suffers from several chronic diseases such as type 2 diabetes, malabsorption syndrome and ulcer. According to him, most of his captivity in the Combinado del Este took place in the so-called section 47 (for those sentenced to life imprisonment), where he was kept without medical treatment, medication or diet, isolated in a punishment cell for two years and eight months.
The political prisoner had recently been transferred to building 1 of the Havana penitentiary center. When he raised his health problems with the head of the building, an older man nicknamed “Piquete,” he responded that there was no diet or medication there either, and that the latter had to be brought by his family.
However, Borges Álvarez assured that his relatives do not have the means to acquire the medications, and insisted that guaranteeing their supply is the responsibility of the prison.
Thus, in demand of medicines, medical care and diet, on November 6 he began a hunger strike that he maintained for 10 days, as he stated. In retaliation, they took him out of the cell under the pretext of giving him “a little food from the guards,” but instead they put him in a vehicle and took him to Kilo 8, in Camagüey.
Upon arriving at this prison and presenting his health situation to the head of the unit, Lieutenant Colonel Juan Miguel Sánchez Duarte, he clarified that there are no medications or doctors there. In this sense, the prisoner also denounced that those who act as nurses are some inmates, after undergoing a three-month training.
Borges Álvarez also reported that inmates wake up every day with symptoms of dengue and other diseases, for which they do not receive medical assistance. Finally, he held the Cuban Government and the Ministry of the Interior responsible for what may happen to his life and that of the rest of the prisoners who fall ill in the prison.
Now, he added, his relatives will no longer be able to visit him due to the distance that separates them from Camagüey.
