HAVANA, June 11 (Xinhua) — Cuba on Wednesday denounced the United States’ blockade of energy supplies to the island, saying it hampered the work of international agencies and organizations in the Caribbean nation and restricted national economic activity.
“It not only restricts the performance of the Cuban economy. It puts the brakes on the work of international agencies and organizations, evidencing its extraterritorial nature,” said Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez on social media X.
According to data from the United Nations (UN) cited by Rodriguez, some 6.3 million U.S. dollars’ worth of essential items that arrived in Cuba in 170 containers “are not reaching the beneficiaries due to fuel shortages.”
Rodriguez stressed that the U.S. energy blockade against Cuba has a real and serious impact on the Cuban population and is part of the “collective punishment” that Washington is inflicting on average citizens.
In early June, reports from the international and local press indicated that the UN World Food Program and other agencies, such as the UN Development Program, were having difficulty distributing aid in Cuba due to a lack of fuel.
The United States, which has maintained an economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba for more than six decades, tightened its chokehold on the Cuban economy in January, imposing sanctions against countries supplying fuel to the island.
So far this year, Cuba, which depends largely on oil imports, has only received about 100,000 tons of crude oil supplied by the Russian ship Anatoly Kolodkin.
Cuba needs about eight ships of fuel each month to operate normally, according to official sources.
