Cuba: A bank is robbed hours before the delivery of pensions

Havana/The Banco Metropolitano branch on Dolores and 18, in Lawton (Havana) was attacked on Monday night, in the middle of a blackout, as confirmed at the scene. 14ymedio. “They broke the ATM and entered through there,” a neighbor of the office told this newspaper, although today there was no apparent sign that the bank had suffered an assault.

Several retirees were surprised with the news this Tuesday, when the office was closed. This Tuesday was the day they received their pensions. For that reason, it is plausible that he would have deposited more cash than usual. Currently in Havana, you cannot withdraw more than 1,000 pesos per person, and in small denominations. “A truckload of 20 bills, I imagine they would bring,” said a customer with bitter sarcasm.

Immediately, an entire operation was deployed by the Ministry of the Interior, but the authorities have not provided any information about the incident.

On the same Dolores Street and during the same blackout, the solar panels were stolen from the nursing home located on the corner of 11th Street.

These events add to the list of crimes committed in the heat of the blackouts, which leave the streets and houses in complete darkness. “After 8:00 at night it is impossible to go out, not only because of the darkness, but because they are attacking people and they are even breaking into buildings to steal, with the owners inside the homes,” a neighbor from the Reparto de los Médicos complained to this newspaper two months ago. in San José de las Lajas.

Electrical outages last almost 48 hours, straining the patience of the population, who stage numerous protests, usually making pots and pans ring. Also Tuesday, Gerardo Hernandez Nordelocoordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, published on his networks that he was in La Güinera, one of the Havana neighborhoods where the repression of the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, 2021 was most virulent. There, the former spy said, “there are districts affected by a breakdown that has prolonged the blackout for almost 40 hours, causing the residents’ discomfort.”

The own part of the Cuban Electrical Union recognizes that yesterday the service was affected for more than 24 hours, since the deficit remained “during the entire early morning hours.” Without the Antonio Guiteras power plant showing signs of prompt recovery, there are nine thermoelectric units stopped and more than a hundred generating plants due to lack of fuel.

In the evening peak hours, 2,000 megawatts (MW) of the maximum demand (3,000 MW) will be missing this Tuesday, two-thirds of what is necessary. Only 1,030 MW will be available.