A group of human rights experts from the United Nations (UN) condemned this Thursday the recent measures by the United States against Cuba, describing them as an attempt to alter the constitutional order of a sovereign state through threats and coercion.
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They also urged the international community and civil society to act quickly to prevent a “silent Gaza” from breaking out on the island, as warned by four members of the U.S. Congress after visiting Cuba, as reported by the organization.
Since July 23, the unilateral U.S. sanctions – which have been expanded since June 2026 to affect key sectors of the Cuban economy – include energy companies, further blocking the acquisition of fuel, even for humanitarian reasons, which, as the UN highlights, occurs at a time when the island is suffering from a severe oil shortage, recently experiencing its third large-scale national blackout.
In recent days, it has also become known that the energy crisis has led to uncollected garbage accumulating in different sectors of Havana, worsening the risk of disease spread.
In response, several human rights rapporteurs, including George Katrougalos, Zaina Jallad, and Sofía Monsalve Suárez, denounced that “the humanitarian consequences are already becoming a full-blown crisis threatening the rights to health, life, food, and development”.
For them, the energy sector, transportation, irrigation, and basic services are simultaneously failing, disproportionately affecting women, children, the elderly, and other vulnerable groups, including rural economy farmers.
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Likewise, UN agencies in Cuba warned of increasing risks of food insecurity and shortages of medicines and essential goods, with repeated collapses of the national power grid and prolonged blackouts interrupting health services.
“Food should never be used as a tool of political pressure. Measures that deliberately deprive a population of the means to survive violate the most basic guarantees of the right to life and undermine the core of human dignity,” the experts stated.
Similarly, they emphasized that U.S. measures against Cuba contravene Article 2 of the UN Charter and are part of a broader regime change strategy that includes the decades-long embargo against the island.
“The United States government must cease all threats and hostile acts against Cuba’s sovereignty and revoke all measures it has imposed on the country that are contrary to international law,” they affirmed.
They concluded by noting that “the Security Council and the General Assembly should urgently address these threats as a matter of international peace and security”.
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