VoxUmmahMedia

Power cuts hit 119 circuits across Havana today, according to the city’s electricity company, as a US fuel blockade leaves Cuba’s grid able to meet barely a third of the country’s demand. The state electricity company, Unión Eléctrica, expected just 958 megawatts to be available at this evening’s peak against demand of 2,850 megawatts, leaving up to 1,922 megawatts cut off across an island where some neighbourhoods have gone without power for up to 20 hours a day.

The shortages follow an executive order signed by Donald Trump on 29 January threatening tariffs on any country that supplies oil to Cuba. Weeks earlier, US forces had kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, cutting off Venezuelan oil shipments to the island, and Mexico, historically a major supplier, halted its shipments the same month under US pressure. By May, Cuba’s energy ministry said the country had run out of oil and diesel. The UN has since reported disrupted water supplies, medicine stocks at around 30% of normal levels and a 60% fall in food production. UN experts described the order as “a serious violation of international law”.