HAVANA, July 10 (Reuters) – Cuba’s national electrical grid collapsed on Friday, marking the second total nationwide outage this week and the fourth so far this year.
“Protocols are being activated to begin the recovery process,” Cuba’s energy ministry said in a social media post, as grid operator UNE began efforts to restore power to the island’s millions of residents.
The collapse followed a prior nationwide outage on Monday. While authorities had managed to reconnect most of the island’s grid by late Tuesday, large swathes of the country, including Santiago de Cuba, remained disconnected due to severe fuel shortages.
Yailin Fis Garcia, 26, stood outside her darkened cafe and pizza joint in central Havana, her 5-month-old baby on her shoulder. She and her family had opened the La Criolla cafe just a few weeks ago, and Friday marked the second time the electrical grid had collapsed since they started.
“All the food spoils, which is an economic hit,” she said.
Still, she knew it could be worse. Her neighborhood on the outskirts of the capital suffers such severe energy shortages that for the last month her home has only received electricity for an hour or two a day, she said.
U.S. President Donald Trump imposed an oil blockade on the Caribbean island after Washington deposed Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on January 3.
Venezuela was Cuba’s primary fuel benefactor, and subsequent U.S. pressure also led Mexico to halt oil shipments to the island.
RISING TENSIONS
The chronic power failures have fueled rising social tensions, sparking scattered pot-banging protests in Havana after Monday’s nationwide blackout.
The unrest recalled demonstrations from July 11, 2021, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets in the largest anti-government demonstrations on the communist-run island in decades.
Havana blames the decades-old U.S. trade embargo for its failing infrastructure, while Washington says the blackouts are due to the mismanagement of Cuba’s state-run economy.
The U.S. has openly stated its goal is to upend Cuba’s government, demanding democratic elections and the release of prisoners it said is held on a political basis.
During a U.N. General Assembly debate on Tuesday, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Michael Waltz laid the blame solely on Havana, stating, “Change your ways and turn the lights back on for your people.”
The vast majority of countries that spoke during the debate, however, called on Washington to end the blockade and reverse the sanctions that have crippled the island’s economy.
Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, said the U.S. fuel embargo and economic sanctions amounted to a “systematic violation of the human rights of an entire people in an act of collective punishment,” calling U.S. policy toward the island “cruel and ruthless.”
(Reporting by Natalia Siniawski and Ayose Naranjo and Laura Gottesdiener in Havana, Editing by Daina Beth Solomon and Aurora Ellis)
