independent demographic studies suggest that Cuba is going through the world’s fastest population decline and is probably already below 8 million – a 25% drop in just four years, suggesting its population has shrunk by an average of about 820,000 people a year.

There are a number of root causes for this exodus, but most experts agree that the blockade, decades of economic crisis, crumbling public services, political repression and widespread disillusionment with the revolution have merged to become a “polycrisis”.

…

Helen Yaffe, a senior lecturer at Glasgow University who has lived on the island and has family there, argues that Cuba’s current crisis can only be understood within the context of decades of US strategy designed to induce economic hardship and “provoke disenchantment and disaffection”, as laid out in the 1960 Lester Mallory memo – a document widely regarded as the blueprint for the US economic embargo.

Ooof that last line though

“I’d rather ICE [immigration enforcement agents] pick me up on a street corner of the US and send me … to any country,” says Fernández. “I say sincerely, from the bottom of my heart: return to Cuba? Not even dead.”

No, no you wouldn’t…