Blackout burglary in Havana steals aid supplies, activist says abused by police

Yamilka Lafita Cancio, an activist known for humanitarian aid work in Havana and other parts of Cuba, said burglars hit her home in the Guiteras neighborhood of Habana del Este after a blackout knocked out the alarm minutes before the theft. She said the break-in happened around 4 a.m. on June 21 and that the intruders came in through the garage, likely using knowledge of the house layout.

The haul was not random. Lafita said the thieves took food, medicines, clothing, school supplies, wheelchairs, walkers, a baby walker, a propane cylinder, cash, documents and personal items. Much of it was humanitarian aid she had been moving to people who depend on that kind of private support, the sort of work that fills gaps left by the state when basic supplies are short.

The burglary was only the first part of the story. Lafita said that when she went to the police to file a report, she was shuttled between Interior Ministry stations instead of being helped through the normal process. She said officers assaulted her and threatened her with a contempt-of-authority charge, turning a complaint about a robbery into a confrontation with the very authorities meant to document it.

Her account lays out a brutal sequence that is easy to follow and hard to dismiss: a blackout, a dead alarm, a burglary, then a police response that she says punished her for asking for protection. In a country where power cuts already weaken everyday security, the loss of those aid supplies mattered twice over, first in what was stolen from her house and then in the message she says the police sent when she tried to report it.

Despite the ordeal, Lafita said she had no intention of leaving Cuba. What began with a blackout in Guiteras ended with a burglary report that never felt like protection at all.