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US President Donald Trump has placed the Caribbean island under a de facto oil blockade, straining its ageing power grid.
Cuba has reported its second nationwide blackout in less than a week, plunging the island into darkness shortly before evening.
On Friday, the Union Electrica de Cuba, the state-owned utility in charge of the electrical grid, announced that the outage began at ۴:۳۰pm local time (۲۰:۳۰ GMT).
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No explanation was given for the blackout. But it follows a similar power failure on Monday, bringing the total number of island-wide outages to four since the start of the year. Two other total blackouts struck in March.
Outages are not uncommon in Cuba, where the electricity infrastructure is increasingly aged. Much of the system dates to the Cold War period, between ۱۹۶۰ and ۱۹۸۰.
But the problem has intensified since January, when United States President Donald Trump effectively severed Cuba’s supply of foreign oil.
Already, Cuba has been under the longest-running trade embargo in modern history. Since the ۱۹۶۰s, the US has largely barred trade with the island, which sits roughly ۱۴۰ kilometres — or ۹۰ miles — from its shores.
Since taking office for a second term, though, Trump has sought to trigger regime change on the communist-led island. Critics have long accused the government in Havana of human rights abuses, including the violent suppression of dissent.
On January ۳, Trump authorised a military operation against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a socialist leader and ally of the Cuban government. The operation culminated in Maduro’s abduction and transport to New York, where he remains imprisoned on drug- and weapons-related charges.
Shortly after Maduro’s removal, Trump announced that Venezuela would no longer send oil or money to Cuba. His administration has continued to control Venezuelan oil exports in the months since.
Then, on January ۲۹, Trump issued an executive order declaring that Cuba “constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US. As part of the order, he threatened any country that supplies the island with fuel with steep tariffs.
Since then, only a single Russian oil tanker has reached Cuban soil — but that was in March.
As of ۲۰۲۳, Cuba only produces ۴۰ percent of the oil it uses, according to the International Energy Agency. The rest comes from overseas.
Human rights experts have warned that the continued fuel deprivation could have consequences for Cuba’s civilian population, as public services like transportation shut down.
In June, the high commissioner for human rights at the United Nations, Volker Turk, pointed to statistics that showed infant mortality nearly doubled in recent months.
“The fuel restrictions imposed since early ۲۰۲۶ and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable,” Turk said in a statement.
“Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable.”
The Trump administration, meanwhile, has blamed mismanagement in the Cuban government for the blackouts.
“We’ve done nothing punitive against the Cuban regime,” US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told Al Jazeera in March.
Prior to the fuel blockade, Cuba had planned to shift some of its energy infrastructure away from fossil fuels, in favour of solar and other renewable energy sources.
It has sped up that transition, with the help of solar technology imported from the US’s main economic rival, China.
Still, renewable energy only accounts for about ۱۸ percent of Cuba’s overall energy consumption, according to estimates from ۲۰۲۲. Cuba aims to produce nearly a quarter of its energy from renewable sources by ۲۰۳۰.
