Cuba admits to massive emigration wave: a million people left in two years amid crisis
BY NORA GÁMEZ TORRES
UPDATED JULY 19, 2024 5:49 PM
A group of people are underway in a Cuban migrant boat the U.S. Coast Guard stopped in December 2023 before it reached the Florida Keys. Credit: U.S. Coast Guard A stunning 10% of Cuba’s population — more than a million people — left the island between 2022 and 2023, the head of the country’s national statistics office said during a National Assembly session Friday, the largest migration wave in Cuban history. The data confirmed reporting by the Miami Herald and Cuban independent media that sounded the alarm over the mass migration of Cubans amid a severe economic downturn and a government crackdown on dissent in recent years. TOP VIDEOS According to the official figures made public for the first time, Cuba’s population went from 11,181,595 on Dec. 31, 2021, to 10,055,968 on December 2023. The emigration of 1,011,269 Cubans was the main factor contributing to a massive fall in Cuba’s population by the end of 2023, when the population stood at a number similar to what it was in 1985, said Juan Carlos Alfonso Fraga, the head of the National Statistics and Information Office.
Read more at:
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/cuba/article290249799.html#storylink=cpy
