CUBA faced an island-wide blackout for the second time this week on Friday as the nation of nearly 10 million people grapples with a crumbling power grid and fuel shortages stemming from a US energy blockade.
While total blackouts have become increasingly common in the Caribbean country, it is unusual for back-to-back ones to hit just days apart.
Cuba’s Electric Union confirmed the outage on X/Twitter. Officials had also confirmed the first total power outage, which happened on Monday, although it was not clear what caused it, with investigations ongoing.
Fuel has been in short supply across Cuba since January, when US president Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or provides oil to the island, deepening the island’s ongoing economic and financial crisis.
Public transportation has largely been halted, and officials have cancelled tens of thousands of surgeries.
Cuba produces only 40% of the fuel it needs, while the 730,000 barrels of oil delivered by a Russian tanker in late March ran out by the end of April.
The government also has been rationing power with intentional outages that can stretch to more than 24 consecutive hours.
A blackout in mid-May affected the island’s eastern provinces, while a blackout in mid-March struck the entire island.
A group of 60 people who did a semester abroad at the University of Havana said Donald Trump aimed to “starve the Cuban people” by cutting off international trade with the island.
The group, who all took part in the study abroad in Cuba programme set up by academics Antoni Kapcia and Par Kumaraswami, said: “Whatever one’s opinions of the Cuban government, the explicit aim of this approach is precisely to starve the Cuban people as a whole with the goal of provoking an uprising.
There is absolutely no justification, neither morally nor legally, for ordinary Cubans to endure misery as a result of the US’ opposition to their government.”
Since 1994 around 300 students from the universities of Nottingham, Manchester, Wolverhampton, Sheffield and Reading, have taken part in the study abroad programme set up by Kapcia and Kumaraswami.
They said the experience taught them about “Cuban ingenuity and resilience” and showed them the “passion and love Cubans have for their culture and their country”.
The open letter to the UK Government went on: “We now watch in horror and despair as the US government attempts to strip our friends and former classmates of their dignity and humanity. Under President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the US government has escalated these punitive measures and created one of the most dire crises the Cuban people have ever faced.
“A political, man-made disaster of catastrophic proportions is already under way in which all Cubans are suffering, but especially the most vulnerable in society. Meanwhile the UK government, Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper have done nothing to prevent this unfolding disaster.”
They said that the ongoing economic embargo against Cuba launched by the US in 1962 was itself a “clear violation of international law and amounts to the collective punishment of the civilian population of Cuba” and added: “The current ramping up of this blockade with the imposition of tariffs on any country supplying Cuba with oil, has intensified an already dire situation.
“It has led to a cascading energy crisis that affects ordinary Cubans’ access to electricity, transport, healthcare, food preservation and income, all causing immense suffering. The cumulative effect of decades of blockade have led to the flight of millions of Cubans.”
The letter concluded: “As former and current students from British universities who have spent time in Cuba and who are UK professionals from all walks of life, we urge Starmer and Cooper to uphold international law and for the UK to do everything in its power to pressure the US government to end its blockade on Cuba.
“We also call on them to reject/circumvent the blockade and immediately deliver aid and assistance to the Cuban people.”
