RIO CAUTO: Thousands of Cubans remain without power, water or proper shelter almost a month after Hurricane Melissa pummeled the island’s eastern region as one of the strongest Atlantic storms in history.
By day, families walk toward the nearest river to fill plastic containers with water and by night, they squeeze together to sleep under temporary shelters and tents.
“We lost everything in the flood,” 80-year-old Lucía García said. “I am very depressed and very sad here.”
García is living in a small classroom with her two sons, ages 45 and 55, and her ailing 81-year-old husband, who remains bedridden.
The school where they’re staying in the town of Río Cauto serves as a shelter for 14 families and is providing daily meals to them and 25 other families living with relatives and neighbors. Water delivery trucks pass by every three or four days.
Many of the town’s residents lived by the river and lost their homes after Melissa cut through eastern Cuba, forcing nearby dams to release huge amounts of water.
More than 2,300 people were evacuated from the Río Cauto area, with more than 750 staying in private homes, according to a Nov. 10 report published in the official newspaper, Granma. It claimed that the return of residents to their homes “has been completed.”
Major damage also was reported in the nearby town of Los Mangos, where residents said massive floods hit a day after the storm made landfall.
“By dawn, the entire village was underwater,” recalled Anisleydis Hidalgo.
“We were evacuated before the hurricane hit,” she said. “When we returned home, they came to tell us there would be flooding…but no one expected the water to reach the level it did.”
She is living in a military-style tent with her 5-year-old daughter and two other families.
Lianet Socarras, a social worker from Los Mangos, said that 58 people, including 30 children, are sharing 10 tents donated by the government of India.
“The most critical problem we have now is the supply of drinking water in the community,” she said, noting that there is none.
‘The sea came into my house’
Soaked mattresses, electrical appliances, clothing, food, furniture and other belongings remain scattered outside the homes, with the smell of decaying carcasses of animals killed during the storm hanging over the town.
Neither the hurricane nor the floods damaged the electrical system in Los Mangos, but scheduled power outages have lasted many hours, further exacerbating an already difficult situation.
In the southern coastal municipality of Guamá, several towns are still reeling from the storm.
“The sea came into my house and soaked mattresses, electrical appliances and everything else that was there,” said Altagracia Fonseca, a 65-year-old retiree.
On a recent day, she walked to a nearby river to wash some of the clothes she was able to salvage after the storm.
Before Melissa hit, she had evacuated and packed only two changes of clothes, a toothbrush, toothpaste and a towel.
“I packed things like someone would when they are going to be away from home for a day,” she said as she burst into tears. “I never imagined I would find my house in such a state of disrepair. It was sad, very painful.”
Elizandra Sorrilla was in a similar situation.
“I packed clothes for myself and my children in a backpack; that’s all we have,” she said. “It’s something none of us will ever forget.”
Sorrilla, along with her husband, two children, and their dog, Roki, are living out of a small grocery store where they have improvised a kitchen and a space that serves as both bedroom and living room.
“They tell us they’re going to help us, but the resources haven’t arrived yet,” Sorrilla said.
Patience is running out
Power outages are constant in Guamá, and officials from the National Electric Union warned that repairs could take until mid-December.
But patience is running out.
Residents in the town of El Carmen recently blocked a main highway with fallen trees and electrical posts, noting they had been without electricity — even before Melissa hit.
“Everyone wants electricity, and we are working tirelessly to achieve this,” said Alfredo López, director general of the National Electric Union, in a heated discussion with residents in the middle of the blocked road.
While food, mattresses, roof tiles and other items are being distributed to those affected by the storm, many needs are still going unmet as relations between Cuba and the US are at their most tense since US President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio took office.
They have implemented a radical tightening of sanctions against the island that were imposed more than six decades ago to pressure it to change its economic model.
No storm-related deaths were reported in Cuba, where authorities evacuated more than 700,000 people from coastal areas.
The UN said that some 53,000 people in Cuba have been unable to return to their homes, including 7,500 living in official shelters.
Melissa also made landfall in Jamaica, where at least 45 deaths were reported, and its outer bands swiped Haiti, where at least 43 people were killed.
Thousands of Cubans struggle without power and water nearly a month after Hurricane Melissa
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Thousands of Cubans struggle without power and water nearly a month after Hurricane Melissa
- By day, families walk toward the nearest river to fill plastic containers with water and by night, they squeeze together to sleep under temporary shelters and tents
US, Ukraine officials say they’ll meet for 3rd day after progress on creating a security framework
- Witkoff and Kushner’s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday
WASHINGTON: President Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials say they’ll meet for a third day of talks on Saturday after making progress on finding agreement on a security framework for postwar Ukraine.
The two sides also offered the sober assessment that any “real progress toward any agreement” ultimately will depend “on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace.”
The statement from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov came after they met for a second day in Florida on Friday. They offered only broad brushstrokes about the progress they say has been made as Trump pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a US-mediated proposal to end nearly four years of war.
“Both parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia’s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,” the statement said. “Parties also separately reviewed the future prosperity agenda which aims to support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, joint US–Ukraine economic initiatives, and long-term recovery projects.”
The US and Ukrainian officials also discussed “deterrence capabilities” that Ukraine will need “to sustain a lasting peace.”
Witkoff and Kushner’s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin and the US envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday.
Friday’s session took place at the the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, a high-end private golf and lifestyle destination owned by Witkoff’s real estate development company.
Previous diplomatic attempts to break the deadlock have come to nothing and the war has continued unabated. Officials largely have kept a lid on how the latest talks are going, though Trump’s initial 28-point plan was leaked.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country’s delegation in Florida wanted to hear from the US side about the talks at the Kremlin.
Zelensky, as well as European leaders backing him, have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling in peace talks while the Russian army tries to press forward with its invasion. Zelensky said in a video address late Thursday that officials wanted to know “what other pretexts Putin has come up with to drag out the war and to pressure Ukraine.”
Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov praised Kushner as potentially playing an important role in ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ushakov also took part in Tuesday’s talks at the Kremlin.
“If any plan leading to a settlement is put on paper, it will be the pen of Mr. Kushner that will lead the way,” Ushakov said.
The flattering comments about Kushner by the senior Russian official come as Putin has sought to sow division between Trump and Ukraine and Europe at a moment when Trump’s impatience with the conflict is mounting. Putin said his five-hour talks this week with Witkoff and Kushner were “necessary” and “useful,” but some proposals were unacceptable.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, was a senior adviser to Trump during his first term and was the president’s point person on developing the Abraham Accords, which formalized commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and a trio of Arab nations.
Kushner has played a more informal role in Trump’s second go-around, but he helped Witkoff close out ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas this fall. Trump tapped Kushner again to pair up with Witkoff to try to find an endgame to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The European take on the peace talks
Ushakov, who accompanied Putin on a visit to India on Friday, repeated the Russian president’s recent criticism of Europe’s stance on the peace talks. Kyiv’s European allies are concerned about possible Russian aggression beyond Ukraine and want a prospective peace deal to include strong security guarantees.
Kyiv’s allies in Europe are “constantly putting forward demands that are unacceptable to Moscow,” Ushakov told Russia’s state-owned Zvezda TV. “Putting it mildly, the Europeans don’t help Washington and Moscow reach a settlement on the Ukrainian issues.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that he made progress during a visit to Beijing on getting Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s support for peace efforts.
“We exchanged deeply and truthfully on all points, and I saw a willingness from the (Chinese) president to contribute to stability and peace,” Macron said.
The French president said he stressed that Ukraine needs guarantees that Russia won’t attack it again if a settlement is reached and that Europe must have a voice in negotiations.
“The unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it, repeat it, emphasize it. We need to work together,” Macron said.
The latest drone attacks
Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery.
The Russian attack on Thursday night in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region destroyed the house where the boy was killed and also two women were injured, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 137 drones of various types during the night.
Ukrainian drones attacked a port and an oil refinery inside Russia overnight as part of Kyiv’s campaign to disrupt Russian logistics, Ukraine’s general staff said.
The drones struck Temriuk sea port in Russia’s Krasnodar region and the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region, starting blazes, a statement said. Syzran is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry said only that its air defenses intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.
