Hospitals have been suffering from rolling blackouts and stockpiles are reportedly set to run out within weeks
Mexican ships carrying humanitarian aid have docked in Havana, challenging a US blockade that has sparked a severe energy crisis in Cuba. Rolling blackouts and enforced fuel rationing hav severely disrupted key services, including hospitals.
The Mexican deliveries arrived on Thursday, two weeks after US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country selling or supplying oil to Cuba. US pressure has halted Mexican oil shipments, while Russia has offered crude and refined oil as a “humanitarian lifeline” to the import-dependent island, whose existing Venezuelan and Mexican fuel stocks are expected to run out within weeks.
In Havana, residents are turning to homemade charcoal stoves, electric motorcycles, and, where affordable, solar panels to cope with power outages of up to 12 hours a day and a deepening fuel shortage, local media say.
The fuel crisis in Cuba deepened after US forces seized Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in early January, cutting off Caracas’s oil exports, a key supply to the import-dependent island.
Six of Cuba’s 16 thermoelectric power plants, including two of the three largest, are offline for maintenance or repairs, cutting thermal generation — about 40% of the country’s energy mix — to half capacity, according to Latin Times.
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