No bombs or bullets fall on Cuba, yet what is being carried out against my people qualifies as genocide. What could possibly justify the cruelty of a superpower like the United States against a small island in the Caribbean?
We are speaking of collective punishment inflicted on more than nine million Cubans through a reinforced economic blockade that has driven suffering to extreme levels, practically incompatible with the basic needs of modern life.
This policy of strangulation also includes an energy siege that prevents fuel from reaching the Island. An executive order signed in January 2026 threatens sanctions against any country that attempts to supply Cuba, and the result has been devastating: in seven months, only one vessel managed to deliver fuel.
The coercion extends beyond Cuban borders, forcing other States to participate in collective punishment that violates fundamental principles of international law.
The consequences are tangible. The national power system has lost around 1,400 megawatts per day, intensifying blackouts and disrupting water pumping, agricultural production, and industry.
Tourism, the engine of fresh income, has been paralysed by the lack of aviation fuel and by pressure against hotel companies operating in Cuba. Daily life suffers in every detail: ruined harvests, factories shut down, households left without light or water.
The health system, a source of national pride, is under constant threat. A power outage during surgery or in an intensive care unit can mean the difference between life and death. Added to this is the delay of thousands of containers with medical supplies and food held in international ports due to pressure on shipping companies.
The persecution of Cuban medical cooperation, based on falsehoods, seeks to cut off a vital source of funding and worsens the shortage of essential resources.
The offensive is not limited to energy. A new executive order issued on May 1, 2026 threatens secondary sanctions against individuals and foreign companies that maintain commercial ties with Cuba. This is a systematic attempt to disconnect the Cuban economy from the rest of the world, imposing isolation that directly harms the population.
Meanwhile, those responsible deny their crimes with impunity, though they fail to convince even members of their own Congress, some of whom have spoken out against the blockade.
The accumulated cost of the blockade exceeds 150 billion dollars, a figure reflected in every blackout, every lost harvest, every threatened surgical procedure. Experts from the UN Human Rights Council have warned that these measures aim to establish a “silent Gaza” in the Caribbean, provoking simultaneous failures in energy, transport, and basic services that disproportionately affect the most vulnerable.
“Deliberately depriving a people of the means to survive is an assault on the right to life and human dignity,” they stressed. The message is clear: what is being carried out against Cuba is economic genocide, a crime the international community cannot tolerate.
It does not take bombs or bullets to destroy a people: it is enough to deny them what is essential to live. To defend Cuba today is to defend the right of nations to exist free from coercion and violence. It means raising our voices against a policy that punishes millions of human beings and seeks to bend the sovereignty of a country through hunger and darkness.
Yadirys Echenique Paz is the resident Ambassador of Cuba to Grenada