Children in a video sent to Cubanos por el Mundo via WhatsApp say they have been eating sweet potato peels and leaves. Host Alex Otaola aired the footage on his program and shared it as a YouTube Short while responding to critics in the Cuban exile community.
The newsroom has contacted the person who submitted the recording and is awaiting a response to establish who filmed it, where in Cuba it was recorded and when. Those details remain unconfirmed. The account below describes what can be seen and heard in the footage, as reported in our Spanish-language coverage.
Children describe eating sweet potato peels and leaves
An adult voice asks the children what they eat. Their answers include sweet potato peels, leaves and, sometimes, sweet potatoes themselves. When the adult asks what else they have, they answer that there is nothing else.
Asked whether he is hungry, one child replies that he is starving. Crying can be heard. The person recording promises to send a friend with assistance and says they will see what can be done that day.
Cubanos por el Mundo is withholding identifying details about the children. The newsroom has not yet independently established their location or the circumstances in which the recording was made.
Otaola responds to his critics
Otaola presented the recording as evidence of hardship that, in his view, Cuba’s Communist Party will not resolve because it created the conditions behind it. He asked viewers to consider what it means for children to eat sweet potato peels.
The host contrasted the footage with accusations that he profits from Cuba’s crisis, misleads Cubans or demands action from people on the island that he did not take when he lived there. He urged those who have accepted their circumstances to think about what they will leave their children and grandchildren. Those comments represent Otaola’s assessment.
The wider picture of child food poverty in Cuba
The Spanish report places the footage in the context of UNICEF’s June 2024 report on child food poverty. The report put severe child food poverty in Cuba at 9%, meaning affected children had access to no more than two of eight food groups. Another 33% of children under 5 experienced moderate food poverty.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, known by its Spanish initials OCDH, and the Food Monitor Program said in a joint statement at the time that the UNICEF figure could be well below the real level. The OCDH’s seventh study on social rights estimated that 89% of Cuban families were living in extreme poverty in 2024. Its eighth study, released in September 2025, put the figure at the same level.
A Cubadata survey conducted for Diario de Cuba between February 23 and March 13, 2026, found that six in 10 respondents described their household situation as bad or very bad. Its lead researcher said hunger had spread beyond specific groups to much of society, according to Diario de Cuba’s report. Those broader findings do not independently verify the circumstances of the children in this recording.
Cubanos por el Mundo has also reported on a girl begging for food in a park and on complaints about inadequate hospital meals for pregnant women in Santiago de Cuba. The second report is in Spanish.
Can you help the newsroom reach the family?
Anyone who knows the children or their relatives can contact the Cubanos por el Mundo newsroom privately on WhatsApp at +1 (305) 600-3108. Several people have offered assistance since the video circulated, and the newsroom wants to help ensure that aid reaches the family.
The location and filming date remain unconfirmed. The report will be updated when the newsroom has additional verified information.
American English adaptation of our original Spanish-language report. The accompanying image is a composite with faces blurred. Its source images and their connection to the recording remain pending verification.
