Despite the navy’s withdrawal and ongoing cleanup, residents face persistent health crises and inadequate medical provision, amid fears that statistics on the island’s cancer rate do not reflect the true extent of the contamination.
Meanwhile, after the Trump administration targeted Venezuela in January to depose the president, Nicolás Maduro, and stepped up its blockade and threats towards Cuba, some Viequenses fear that the military reactivation of their home is imminent.
Last November, the Roosevelt Roads military base in Ceiba, on the main island, was reopened 21 years after it was shut down.
Long Journey for Care
Dr Lorena Estrada-Martínez, of the University of Massachusetts, has been assessing since 2020 the effect of the navy’s presence, funded by an EPA grant after years of advocacy from Viequenses.
The project lost funding in 2025, at the start of the second Trump administration, but Estrada-Martínez still hopes to complete it despite the lack of support.
Viequenses have for years supplemented the statistics with stories of personal tragedy. One was of five-year-old Milivy Adams Calderón, who died of lymphoma in 2002.
She had above-average levels of uranium in her blood.
Carlos “Prieto” Ventura, 65, a local organiser, is straightforward and unsentimental when he talks about cancer in his home in Esperanza.
"In our neighbourhood, our community, almost everyone has died of cancer, one house after another," he said.
"Although the navy continues to deny any kind of connection with them, we don’t see how we can have some [other] elements that could justify so many deaths on our island from cancer."
