15 organizations sign joint statement warning about humanitarian crisis in Cuba after island-wide blackout

Independent organizations denounced the current humanitarian situation in Cuba amid the total collapse of the national energy system that occurred on Friday, Oct. 18 amid Hurricane Oscar.

According to joint statement released by 15 human rights groups, there are areas on the island that have experienced more than 70 continuous hours without service.

“We have seen in Cuba the total collapse of essential services for human subsistence,” says the statement, which warns about the impossibility of refrigerating medicines and food, as well as severe restrictions on the supply of drinking water.

Diversos #observatorios y varias #organizaciones independientes de la #sociedad civil cubana se unen para #denunciar la situación real en Cuba tras el #colapso del sistema energético nacional (#SEN) el pasado viernes 18 de octubre, que desplomó la totalidad de los servicios…

— Obs de Envejecimiento, Cuidados y Derechos (@cuido60) October 21, 2024

The crisis, which had been brewing with a deficit of more than 50% in national electricity generation, reached its critical point last Friday and areas still remain without electricity.

“These conditions, together with the government's surveillance, control and criminalization of any independent initiative that could articulate and assist the most disadvantaged, now make survival conditions impossible,” said the signatory organizations.

The document demands that the Cuban regime collect information on the differentiated impacts of this crisis and develop a plan of compensatory measures, especially for the most vulnerable groups: “older people, infants, women, people with disabilities, people with chronic diseases and a population deprived of liberty.”

The organizations also demand that independent civil society be allowed to participate in emergency actions and humanitarian aid “without being criminalized,” and called for the regime to respect the right to peaceful protest in the midst of the unprecedented crisis.

The 15 organizations that signed the press release are the following organizations: the Food Monitor Program, Cuido60-Observatory of Aging, Care and Rights, Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (OGAT), Cubalex, the Virtual Museum of Memory against Gender-Based Violence, Dialogue Table of Cuban Youth, Citizenship and Freedom, 4Métrica Foundation, Cuban Women's Network, Justice 11J, Cuban Prisons Documentation Center, Civil Rights Defenders, Museum of Dissidence in Cuba, Institute on Race, Equality and Human Rights and the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.

Despite the slow restoration of electrical service, several areas of the island remain without electricity, especially eastern Cuba where Hurricane Oscar passed through.

Hurricane Oscar left six dead, damaged homes and degraded Cuban infrastructure.