Havana Cuba. — While thousands of Cuban men and women seek to leave the country due to the critical economic and political situation on the Island, the Cuban regime and its official media try to hide the dimension of the crisis.
In a review of the publications on social networks made —since the beginning of May— by President Miguel Díaz Canel and Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, only three publications on the subject were detected, all issued by the Cuban Foreign Minister.
In the posts, Rodríguez omits to mention “crisis” and never mentions figures that measure the size of the exodus that the Island is experiencing. On the contrary, he limits himself to blaming the United States government for, according to him, promoting the irregular migration of Cubans.
For example, on July 2, it published: “The US vs. Cuba policy on migration continues to encourage irregular emigration, human trafficking with operations in that country. The consequences of this criminal activity include the loss of lives and the suffering of Cuban families.”
The occultism shown by the Cuban authorities is also observed in the official media. Usually, Granma Y Cubadebate they only report on the number of migrants who are returned by the authorities of other countries.
For example, last June 18, Cubadebate posted the headline More than 3,200 irregular migrants returned to Cuba in 77 operations in 2022. On May 25, the newspaper Granma reported: More than 2,500 irregular migrant Cubans have been returned.
The notes of Granma Y Cubadebate They do not mention how many people are fleeing the Island or the causes of the massive departure. However, the Castro media do publish articles stating that the migration crisis is “manufactured” by the United States.
An example of this type of publication was the article by Granmaof April 22, entitled Who is interested in fabricating an ‘immigration crisis’ between Cuba and the US?in which it is stated, without evidence, that everything is a plan by the United States to generate chaos in Cuba.
“Faced with the failure of July 11, the Yankee plan that seeks to generalize chaos and sell the world the image of an ungovernable, bloody and tyrannical island, to justify humanitarian ‘intervention’, tries to generate that image using the old expedient of the migration crises,” the article says.
What do we know about the dimension of the crisis?
Last June 17, CubaNet public that from October 11, 2021 to May 31, 2022, 140,602 Cubans had arrived in the United States. The data was revealed by the United States Department of Customs and Border Protection. The same note reported that 25,692 Cubans arrived in that country alone during the month of May, according to a document from the same entity.
These figures are higher than those of the Mariel exodus in 1980, when some 125,000 Cubans emigrated to the United States, which would make the current crisis the largest in the island’s history.
Note: ANDThis work was done in collaboration with the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR).
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