Nine Cubans being held at the Cayman Islands Customs and Border Control Detention Center were “diagnosed with the smallpox virus.” According to a publication of the Cayman Islands Customs and Border Control Office (CBC), the migrants were taken to the Breakers Civic Center where they remain “isolated”.
The information comes hours after these Cubans denounced the lack of medical attention through videos shared on social networks. “They do not take action with any of us,” said one of the migrants in a material that was shared by the doctor Alexander Pupo Casas on your Facebook account.
“With a fever and no one comes to see us here. We have had nothing for days, nor a result of anything, zero medications, human rights here do not attend to us,” added the complainant. In the final part of the material, a person is seen lying on the floor and two agents looking on at the Cubans’ claim.
Migration does not offer more details about the type of smallpox that the Cubans contracted. It limits itself to specifying that the Breakers Civic Center, to which the island’s nationals were taken, is one of the four Civic Centers that appear in the Mass Migration Contingency Plan as “alternative accommodation for migrants” that “will remain there until fully recover.”
The migrants were taken to the Breakers Civic Center where they remain “isolated”… and arrangements have been made for the detention center to be sanitized
Public Health, it is indicated in the same statement, “has been monitoring the situation and is serving the migrants.” Although it is acknowledged that “this situation created increased tension with the other migrants”, it is nevertheless stated that “it has subsided and arrangements have been made for the detention center to be disinfected in order to help prevent further spread of the virus”.
In another video, this shared by Yosvani Rodriguez Vega, it is mentioned that there are 78 people in the retention center, to whom they distributed 10 small milks to drink, “who don’t even make five glasses,” says the person who records the material, who does not want problems. Despite the fact that there are several boxes with food, she affirms that they cannot have breakfast, “because an officer does not feel like it.”
Last May, the CBC warned that if the arrival of Cubans continues, more funds will be needed for their care, which has already generated an expense of more than 450,000 dollars so far this year. And he assured that he had $300,000 available for 2022.
The largest influx of Cubans to the Cayman Islands was recorded between 1993 and 1995, when more than 2,000 Cubans passed through the archipelago, most of them entering through the island of Cayman Brac. His final destination was to reach the United States after setting foot in a Central American country.
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