A massive fight between groups of young people took place this Saturday in Havana, and left horrifying images of gangs armed with machetes and wounded with knives, according to reports on social networks.
The events took place in the surroundings of what is known as Finca de los Monos (Quinta de las Delicias), in the Cerro municipality of the Cuban capital, during a festive activity apparently organized by the Union of Young Communists (UJC) to begin to its summer campaign.
“Young people from different gangs are at the Finca de los Monos, where the beginning of summer called by the UJC was celebrated,” the user identified as Edmundo Dantés Junior reported on Facebook.
At the time of writing this note, neither the authorities nor the official media have commented on events that leave practically unpublished images of hundreds of young Cubans swept up in a frenzy of violence and the presence of gangs with machetes and knives.
“According to what they say, the events were due to a ‘settling of accounts’. I can’t put the strongest videos. It didn’t end well, at least 5 did not survive, although they tell me that there are already 12, it is not confirmed and false photos are circulating. Many others are serious. Children from 13 to 15 years old,” said the Internet user in his report.
According to their information, young people were reported dead in the mass fight. Rumors speak of between a dozen and half a dozen young people with fatal injuries, plus an unknown number of wounded. This information could not be confirmed by this editorial team.
However, the images recorded on video and shared on social networks reveal an unusual outbreak of violence, with the presence of hundreds of young people, many of them adolescents and minors.
One of the videos captured the moment when police officers loaded a badly injured young man into a patrol car to take him to the hospital. “For him [hospital] Pediatric Center of Central Havana,” a police officer is heard saying, giving instructions to the driver of the police vehicle.
The revolt appears to have spread in time and space, as other videos showed scenes of fights at dusk and in other streets of the city.
It is unknown what was the trigger for such an outbreak of violence, although there is talk of rivalries between gangs. The truth is that the surroundings of the Finca de los Monos, a space equipped with technological attractions for children according to their social networks, will be filled with groups of young people and adolescents with machetes and knives.
At the beginning of April, the UJC chose a unique slogan for its campaign for the 12th Congress, in a context of scarcity and increasing poverty in Cuba: “Create your happiness”.
The philosophical slogan aims to invite young Cubans to invent an ideal world, in a country that is crumbling, so that they can find happiness for themselves.
The gruesome images of this Saturday’s massive fight reveal that Cuban youth are experiencing experiences closer to hell than to happiness.
