One week after the earthquakes that struck Venezuela, at least 20 Cubans remain missing, although the actual number could be higher. Eight have been found dead. Most were in different parishes of La Guaira—Caraballeda, Catia La Mar, Macuto, and Naiguata—the state that has become a “disaster zone” on the shores of the Caribbean Sea.
Faby Rodríguez, 22, did not think she would be detained that morning, that it would be her last day of freedom in the United States. She arrived on time for her immigration check-in appointment in San Antonio, Texas, as she always had. That day, her journey back to Cuba began.
The Cuban countryside is facing an unprecedented production crisis, with drastic harvest and animal yield reduction in nearly every sector. In that context, the government has once again modified the agricultural legal framework. The changes have to do with the “wholesale and retail commercialization of agricultural and forestry products” and “production contracting” to replace the regulatory system in force since 2021.
Neither the landline nor mobile data works. Xiomara remains cut off from communication for much of the day. “We don’t have transportation to go see our relatives, and now we can’t even find out how they are,” she complained from Villa Clara. Her experience is similar to that of millions of Cubans suffering a double blackout.
