The United States Embassy in Cuba has reported this Wednesday that it has resumed a large part of consular services for the first time since its suspension in 2017, when Washington decided to withdraw its diplomatic presence on the island after several diplomats fell ill after suffering the well-known ‘Havana syndrome’.
The diplomatic legation has now confirmed that it will once again accept visa applications for Cuban migrants, although it will give priority to those citizens who request permission to meet with their relatives in US territory, as confirmed by the state broadcaster NPR.
The resumption occurs as the migratory flow from Cuba increases significantly, which has increased pressure on the Administration of US President Joe Biden, which has made more legal ways available to Cubans to access the country as it seeks to resume the dialogue with the Government of Cuba despite the historical disputes.
Now, Washington estimates that the authorities will grant about 20,000 visas a year. In December, the US government indicated that 34,675 Cubans had tried to enter the country through the border with Mexico in just one month, 21 percent more than the 28,848 who tried in October.
The numbers have been increasing over the months, and Cubans now form the second population group –after Mexicans– that gathers at the southern border of the United States with the aim of requesting asylum.
At the end of 2021, the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recognized that some of its agents suffered from the so-called ‘Havana syndrome’, alluding to the alleged attacks that were detected for the first time in the Cuban capital against agents. and American diplomats and whose cause would be, presumably, in electromagnetic energy.
US diplomats had been informed of the presence of symptoms since 2016, raising questions about the possibility that countries like China or Russia were behind the cases.
Since then, hundreds of US diplomats, military personnel and senior officials have said they have been affected by this syndrome, which is characterized by causing symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, vertigo and migraines, among others. The US State Department believes that the diplomats could have been exposed to some unidentified acoustic attack, although they have not yet reached a definitive conclusion.
