(30 Sep 2024)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana, Cuba – 21 September 2024
1. People walking down the street amidst accumulated garbage
2. People line up to buy rationed food, a man in motorcycle throws trash bag onto pile of garbage in the street
3. People searching through garbage
4. Water tanker trucks
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Elsa Infante, retiree:
++ SOUNDBITE PARTIALLY OVERLAID WITH SHOT 5 ++
“I feel bad, sincerely bad, pardon the phrase. If I could go to a mountain near a river, I would leave. I lived in the countryside and never saw the situation I am living in now. It is the worst, very bad situation.”
6. Water tanker truck pours water into a cistern
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Elia Juliana Ramos, a retiree:
“Terrible, I am fed up. In the years that I have, we went through the Special Period, and it was nothing like what we are living through now.”
8. Rodriguez washes dishes by candlelight at home
STORYLINE:
Cubans add piles of garbage accumulating in every corner and a severe water shortage to the long list of dissatisfaction and complaints in these times of crisis.
Power outages, fuel shortages, food shortages, deficient public transportation, and inflation are part of a chain of evils that have affected Cuba for the past three years.
In Havana, the capital and largest city in the country, the near collapse of public services is evident on every street. People and cars have to maneuver around piles of garbage while residents pray for the arrival of the "pipa" – as Cubans call the water tanker trucks.
“I feel bad,” Elsa Infante, a 74-year-old retiree, cried. “I lived in the countryside, and I never saw the situation I am living in. It is the worst, the worst."
According to a report by the official newspaper Granma with data provided by Communal Services in July, the collection teams are working at only 57% capacity due to breakdowns of garbage trucks.
The authorities point out that a good part of these deficiencies that make life difficult for the people are a direct consequence of the U.S. sanctions against the island.
But those living without water and electricity and surrounded by uncollected trash want a solution and an answer to their pleas to their local representatives.
“It is true that there is this or that blockade, but the worst blockade is within us; the worst organization is among those who…have the jobs but don’t do what is expected of them," complained Infante.
José Antonio Hernández, president of the Water and Sanitation Business Group, said earlier this month that approximately 600,000 people were experiencing water shortages due to equipment malfunctions and fuel unavailability for pumping.
In Havana alone, more than 130,000 people are without water. Other cities like Santiago, Holguín, and Villa Clara also suffer from water shortages.
"The water tanker trucks were sent because there were some children with suspected hepatitis and or pouches," said Aymé Rodríguez, a self-employed worker whose house adjoins Infante’s. "This part of the neighborhood had been without water for 15 days," she said.
When the AP visited this block last week, it did not have electricity either because the authorities ordered four-hour interruptions to be programmed according to day and neighborhood.
The street perception is that the crisis is even more severe than that of the so-called Special Period between 1990 and 1993 following the fall of the Soviet Union when Cubans suffered severe shortages, and the Gross Domestic Product fell by 35%.
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