The Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MINREX) reported this Monday that it remains in contact with the Polish authorities to identify 35 Cubans who are on the border between that country and Belarus, the island’s official media reported.
According to the director of Consular Affairs and Cuban Residents Abroad of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ernesto Soberón, the diplomatic legation in that nation will maintain exchanges with local authorities to obtain the requested information on the situation of said people, a dispatch from the Prensa Latina (PL) news agency specified.
On Saturday, the independent newspaper Diario de Cuba had reported the situation of the group, which is surviving in a makeshift camp where there are several women, one of them pregnant, and four children. According to the interview with one of them, Rafael González Simón, none are contemplating the possibility of returning to Cuba.
Nuestra Embajada en Varsovia se mantiene en contacto con la Policía de Frontera Polaca para la identificación de los 35 ciudadanos cubanos que se encuentran en la frontera entre Polonia y Belarús.
— Ernesto Soberón. (@SoberonGuzman) March 13, 2022
The group came from Russia and was in a “critical” situation, according to the testimony, “without food, water, blankets to cover us, with weather below zero,” although the interviewee reported that a Polish officer had given medicine to the mother of a girl, who had a fever, as well as “some food.”
Recently, the MINREX indicated that it is closely following the arrival of Cuban citizens to Poland, Slovakia, Romania and Hungary, coming from Ukraine which they left due to the Russian invasion. With these it maintains communication, according to the Foreign Ministry.
It also ratified that the Cuban diplomatic missions will provide information and consular attention to those who require it, PL underlined.
On March 3, the Foreign Ministry confirmed that more than 250 citizens of the island had returned from Russia after the beginning of this country’s invasion of neighboring Ukraine, a military operation that generated the rejection of many Western countries, led by the United States and the European Union, which imposed heavy sanctions on the government in Moscow. One of them was the closure of airspace to Russian airlines, which has significantly restricted flights to and from that nation.
Since the outbreak of the conflict, the Cuban diplomatic representation in Russia has kept in contact with the nationals who are in these conflict zones, with the aim of providing them with the necessary assistance and supporting the efforts for their return to Cuba, Soberón had specified, also from his Twitter profile.
