ACI Prensa Staff, Jul 26, 2021 / 14:20 pm
The director of the Hispanic Development Unit of Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Ana Gloria Rivas-Vásquez, called for Catholics around the world to help Cuba, especially its elderly, afflicted by what she calls a "hunger pandemic."
“In addition to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been a hunger pandemic in Cuba. The people most affected are the elderly. The people of Cuba are aging and around 20% are older people,” Rivas-Vásquez told ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish language news partner July 25, the day the Church inaugurated the first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly.
According to 2017 data from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), 20% of the population of the countries of Barbados, Cuba and Uruguay was 60 years old or more, and 6 to 7% of the population was 75 years old or more.
The commission’s data also indicated that the island became the first aging economy in the region since 2010 due to various factors, including a sustained decline in fertility and a sustained net loss in emigration versus immigration.