HAVANA, Cuba. – Several residents of the building located at number 3103 31st Avenue, in Playa, Havana, have been receiving drinking water contaminated with oil for around six months, according to what they reported in interview with CubaNet.
Around 36 families reside in the property, including children, people with visual disabilities and the elderly.
“The water contaminated with oil comes through the pipes and the delegate of the Aguas de La Habana company, the government, knows that. [municipal de Playa]the president of the popular council and the Municipal Housing Directorate. However, all these institutions said that it was not their problem,” denounced Antonia Céspedes Fonseca, who is the president of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR) of the building.
According to the interviewee, it all started in mid-August 2024, when the neighbors discovered that the building’s cistern was completely contaminated with oil.
According to Céspedes Fonseca, all the municipal authorities arrived there, including the National Revolutionary Police (PNR), which went to investigate whether it was an “act of sabotage.”
However, as the woman points out, “the most ironic thing” about the discovery was that after ruling out that it was an act of sabotage, all the authorities ignored the matter.
“Everyone came to look and that’s it; That was the only thing they did. That’s why I published a video on social media that I made the day we cleaned the cistern. The neighbors called the authorities, but nothing. Hygiene and Epidemiology came and did several tests and that’s it; They said that the water could not be used and even today’s sun,” he lamented.
For her part, Rosa María Cedeño Algudín added that, at the beginning, after verifying the contamination of the cistern, the authorities were sending pipes to supply drinking water to the residents in the building. However, the service, which is not maintained, was “unstable,” said the interviewee.
“They sent them once a day; a small pipe for 36 apartments. They sent her at any time, many times at 11:00 or 12:00 at night; and the whole day the neighbors waited downstairs for it to arrive because there was not a drop of water,” lamented Cedeño Algudín.
In addition, he added that they currently have to travel long stretches to carry drinking water in other neighborhoods.
“No one has cared about us and we are totally desperate. That’s why I ask the authorities who can see this publication to please help us,” the woman said.
According to Juana María Hernández Pérez, another resident of the property, this is not the only situation that afflicts the residents of the building. According to what they proposed to CubaNetalso present a complex situation with the fuel to cook food since the apartments where they reside were given to them without manufactured gas facilities or “street gas,” as it is popularly known.
“There are very few of us who have a contract for liquefied gas in this building and we have it because we bring the contracts from the other places where we lived. Unfortunately, you have to go look for it at 19 and 78, which is a very long distance even though there are closer points. Others cook with electricity and when they remove it they cannot cook,” lamented Hernández Pérez.
