May 14, 2026, 6:03 p.mMay 14, 2026, 6:03 p.m
Hundreds of Cubans protested against the dramatic energy crisis in Havana. The city has power outages every day, with outages sometimes lasting up to 22 hours. In several districts of the Cuban capital, angry residents set up burning barricades and banged pots overnight, as seen in videos on social media. The government of the socialist Caribbean country attributes the crisis to a month-long US oil blockade.
A woman walks past a barricade erected by residents protesting ongoing power outages in Havana.Image: keystone
There was another major power outage early on Thursday. The power grid collapsed between the central province of Ciego de Ávila and Guantánamo in the east, state power company UNE said. According to official information, the energy deficit during peak load times currently amounts to more than 2,000 megawatts.
Just an oil shipment from abroad
Since the beginning of the year, only one Russian tanker carrying 100,000 tons of oil has been allowed to call at the island. According to the communist government, the country with around ten million inhabitants needs at least eight of these deliveries every month. Due to a lack of fuel and dilapidated infrastructure, Cuba can only meet a third of its energy needs.
In January, Cuba lost its most important supplier, Venezuela, after the US overthrew and arrested the authoritarian President Nicolás Maduro through a military operation. In addition, in January Washington threatened Cuba’s other oil suppliers with punitive tariffs, which led to a halt to deliveries from countries such as Mexico.
Cuba could accept US offer of aid worth millions
After the US State Department offered $100 million in direct humanitarian aid to the Cuban people on Wednesday, the Cuban government said it was willing to consider the offer. Washington said aid would be distributed through the Catholic Church and other independent organizations.
“We are ready to listen to the details of the offer and the way in which it should be implemented,” wrote Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez on However, according to Rodríguez, the best help the US government could provide is to ease the energy, economic, trade and financial embargo against the island.
Relations between the two countries have been tense since the 1959 revolution. US President Donald Trump has further increased pressure on Cuba to force economic and political change on the island. President Miguel Díaz-Canel recently criticized the US’s “brutal measures to suffocate Cuba economically and energetically” in a post on Platform (hkl/sda/dpa)