'When are the Americans coming to liberate us?’ Cuba is crying for help. |
The alarm goes off at 7 in the morning, and Laura gets up to prepare her daughter for school. They have gone more than 20 hours without electricity. They couldn't sleep all night because of the heat and the mosquitoes. The girl's milk has spoiled; today, breakfast is a glass of sugar water and a piece of bread.
"This is agonizing, a constant torment," Laura tells me from Havana. On top of the blackouts, running water hasn't reached her home in more than two weeks. The sources in this piece spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation by Cuban authorities.
In May, Cuba's energy minister declared that the country had run out of the diesel and fuel oil needed to keep its power plants running. Power cuts – a constant feature of Cuban life for the past couple of years – are growing longer. In some areas, residents go two or three consecutive days without electricity. The lack of power cripples the water supply, transportation and the ability to store and prepare food.
"Sometimes I have to go out looking for firewood to cook because charcoal is too expensive,” Laura says. “Most of the time we can only manage one meal a day.”
In the eastern part of the country, the situation is even more dire. "People walk around like zombies and look like they have some terminal illness – it's the hunger they're going through," says Yadira from Santiago de Cuba province.
"I use the refrigerator as a wardrobe because........