Havana Cuba. – The Cuban activists Olaida del Castillo Trujillo and Ivonne de las Mercedes Lazo Abreu, members of the opposition movement Cuba Independiente y Democrática, denounced their “terrible” living conditions in the shelter where they reside, located in the capital’s municipality of Playa.
“You can see the conditions in which I live,” Lazo Abreu tells CubaNet when showing his room of approximately three meters long by two meters wide. In the little space she has, the woman has accommodated two beds, a makeshift kitchen, a two-seater sofa, a television, and a refrigerator.
The property does not have a bathroom or kitchen. “I have to relieve myself in a bucket,” says the activist.
The woman and her daughter are housed in what was the old “El Camarón Encantado” Children’s Circle, located at the intersection of 88 and 21 avenues in the Buenavista neighborhood, Playa municipality. The facility was supposedly a transit community; however, there are about 10 families that have lived there for years.
“Here I came after giving scandals in Social Welfare [dirección municipal del Ministerio de Trabajo y Seguridad Social] and after going to all governments [municipal de Playa y provincial de La Habana] because I was in the street with my girl”, explains the woman.
Likewise, the activist explained that the regime is trying to “starve her out” because state officials withdrew the card with which she purchased food, a document that was provided to her during the pandemic and that functioned as a ration book.
“I have to go out there to stride, to search, to sell a sweater or whatever to be able to feed that little girl, because there is no… there is no bread in this country anymore,” he laments.
About six years have passed since Lazo Abreu and his daughter arrived at the shelter where they were supposed to stay for only a few days, according to the authorities who took her to said facility.
“I was leaving here soon, but I don’t know about that soon… because I’ve been here for six years and nothing: we don’t have an address here, we don’t have a supply booklet, or property, we’re here on loan; when they feel like it they come, they take us out and nothing happens”, says the interviewee.
A similar situation is described by the activist Olaida del Castillo Trujillo, who lives in the same shelter, in a room that, although larger, does not have the minimum conditions to be inhabited. “I am living in subhuman conditions, we don’t have a bathroom and we have to relieve ourselves in a bucket,” she laments.
“When I got out of prison I was sleeping in the streets, in the parks, until one day I went to Plaza [de la Revolución] and I manifested myself there. I was in Villa Marista for 37 days and from there they transferred me here, to this shelter,” says Olaida, who has also lived in this shelter for about six years.
Given the lack of housing, the Cuban regime has turned numerous state facilities into shelters, even when they do not have the necessary conditions to reside in them.
Thousands of Cubans who have lost their homes for different reasons have been residing for years in old schools, day care centers or abandoned factories, which have been “converted” by the regime into shelters. For the most part, people have had to improvise houses and divisions with scraps of cardboard and wood.
Both Olaida del Castillo Trujillo and Ivonne de las Mercedes Lazo Abreu belonged to the opposition group the ladies in white. They are currently part of Independent and Democratic Cubaan organization that fights against the Cuban regime to achieve the restoration of the rights and freedoms of the people.
