In an end-of-year video message for social media, Cuba’s leader, Miguel Díaz-Canel, recently acknowledged that 2022 was “one of the most challenging of Cuba’s revolutionary history.” He then admitted that 2023 “could be even more difficult,” but that, he added, would be “an attractive challenge for all who feel revolutionary.”
Nowadays, not many Cubans appear to. Instead, they keep leaving the island for the United States, risking their lives and, at times, overwhelming local authorities who, like this weekend in South Florida, had to respond to more than 500 Cuban migrants reaching the Florida Keys.
“I would prefer to die to reach my dream and help my family. The situation in Cuba is not very good,” said Jeiler del Toro Diaz, a 36-year-old fisherman who left Cuba on Dec. 30 from Cardenas, a city in the province of Matanzas, along with a dozen other Cubans.
