Cabaiguán (Cuba) (EFE).- The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, announced this Sunday that direct aid for Canarians in Cuba will be multiplied by five, to benefit more than 1,500 families.
Torres made this announcement in Cabaiguán, a small town in the center of Cuba, in front of several hundred Canarians and descendants of Canarians, during the first day of his visit to the Caribbean country, where he intends to meet with members of the largest Canarian community in the abroad (some 65,000 people) and with national and local authorities.
The Canarian president has explained that this aid is due to a special plan endowed with 100,000 euros. The money is expected to start flowing this year.
“This is good news,” Torres later summarized in statements to the media, who vindicates the importance of “solidarity” in difficult times.
He also added that there is already an extra-budgetary political “commitment” to financially help “brothers from the Canary Islands outside the eight islands” with the international cooperation budget item, which will increase “progressively until 2027.” “That is guaranteed,” he assured.
Torres has stated that he would have wanted to “come earlier” to Cuba to visit a community with which the Canary Islands share “ties and ancestors”, but that it was impossible for him due to the confluence of the pandemic, migration, the La Palma volcano and the difficulties arising from the war in Ukraine.
The Canarian president has made this visit to Cabaiguán -the Cuban city with the most Canarians- accompanied, among others, by the Spanish ambassador to Cuba, Ángel Martín Peccis, and the Cuban Vice Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas.
The Canarian president is expected to hold several meetings this Monday with high-ranking officials of the Cuban government, including the ministers of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, and of Foreign Trade and Foreign Investment, Rodrigo Malmierca.
Torres’ visit to Cuba is part of the president’s Latin American tour of countries with significant Canarian migration and which also includes Venezuela. EFE