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The study reveals that surviving a suicide attempt can be considered an act of desertion, punishable by more than ten years in prison.
July 20, 2026 – “The Hardening of Compulsory Military Service in Cuba” is a new report by the Cuban Observatory for Citizen Auditing (OCAC) that documents one of the most dramatic realities of Compulsory Military Service (SMO) in Cuba. Suicide is the leading cause of death among young recruits, while the government has tightened laws to punish those who attempt to evade service—even when the only way out is self-harm or a suicide attempt.
The study records 97 documented deaths of young people during military service between 2001 and 2026, though it warns that the actual number is much higher due to the lack of official statistics and the secrecy of the military authorities. The average age of the victims is just 18.
According to the study, 33 of the 97 deaths between 2021 and 2025 were suicides, a figure that makes self-inflicted injuries the leading cause of death within the Cuban military, surpassing accidents, negligence, illness, or homicide. But even more concerning is that 22 of the suicide deaths occurred in 2025 alone, demonstrating a significant rise in the phenomenon last year and bringing the Cuban experience in line with that of Israel—whose armed forces were involved in a traumatic conflict—during that same period.
OCAC maintains that this reality cannot be analyzed as a mere sum of individual tragedies. The report describes an environment characterized by isolation from family, precarious living conditions, grueling workdays, inadequate medical and psychological care, abuses of authority, and the use of young people in tasks unrelated to military training.
The methods described in the testimonies are brutal: self-inflicted wounds with weapons, swallowing sharp objects, machete blows to the ankles and knees, and deliberate bone fractures. In the words of several former recruits, self-harm is for many the most viable way to escape an oppressive and degrading system. Unfortunately, when none of these avenues work, some see suicide as the final option.
One of the most striking aspects of the report is not only the high incidence of suicide but also the Cuban state’s institutional response. Far from addressing the conditions that drive numerous recruits to psychological breakdown, the regime has chosen to tighten the legal framework punishing evasion of military service.
The Military Penal Code, adopted in 2023, establishes penalties of up to five years in prison for those who attempt to evade service, while the ordinary Penal Code punishes those who resort to fraudulent means or self-harm to obtain a medical discharge.
But the provision that most alarms the lead researcher of this study, José Manuel González Rubines, is another. According to the report, the Military Prosecutor’s Office considers suicide a form of desertion, meaning that young people who survive a suicide attempt face the possibility of criminal prosecution, with sentences that can exceed ten years in prison. The system’s response is not to investigate what led a young person to attempt suicide, but rather to punish them with severe penalties, the study notes.
The report also warns that Cuba is moving in the opposite direction of the trend observed in most of Latin America.
Over the past three decades, countries such as Argentina, Ecuador, Peru, and Uruguay have abolished mandatory conscription, while Chile and Mexico maintain considerably more flexible systems. Cuba, on the other hand, not only retains one of the most coercive systems on the continent but has also strengthened criminal penalties, maintains a ban on conscientious objection, and continues to draft young people as young as 17.
Added to this is another particularly troubling factor. Amid the worst demographic crisis in its recent history and high youth emigration, the study documents allegations that military authorities are relaxing medical and psychological criteria to meet recruitment quotas, even enlisting young people with conditions that would normally justify their exemption.
OCAC concludes that Compulsory Military Service in Cuba is no longer merely an institution dedicated to national defense but has become a mechanism of social control that operates with little transparency and virtually no accountability mechanisms.
More than sixty years after the creation of compulsory military service, while most of Latin America has reduced or eliminated forced conscription, Cuba continues to tighten a system whose human cost continues to grow in silence.
