Cubans rendered powerless as outages persist while tensions with US intensify

Описание: (5 Feb 2026)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Santa Cruz del Norte, Cuba - 03 February 2026
1. Minorkis Hoyos lighting wood to cook
2. Various of Hoyos cooking in woodstove
3. Hoyos lighting torch for illumination
4. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Minorkis Hoyos, local resident:
“At night here, I can’t even see the walls. I hit myself by hitting the walls as well as the fridge and the front door, because I can’t see. A neighbor gave me a bottle with oil so that I could make a torch.”
5. Man unloading coal sacks from carriage
6. View of tower of with thermoelectric emissions
7. Oil drilling equipment not working
8. Various of Juan Alberto Varona washing clothes on sidewalk
9. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Juan Alberto Varona, retired baseball player:
“The feeling of fighting until death is because we were born here, we have seen many good and bad things, but we repeat by heart that Cuba is free, and we have to die with it.”
10. Children playing dominoes on sidewalk
11. Mariela Viel sitting outside home with cat
12. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Mariela Viel, retired thermoelectric worker:
“We had a good economic situation, mainly because our currency had value, now by changing it to the dollar system, the money is not even enough to buy food, and we are struggling a lot.”
13. Various of Kenia Montoya lighting cigarette and speaking with her family
14. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Kenia Montoya, local resident:
“Until December things were a little better, but it's January and money is tight. The anvil is crushing us. Where's the improvement?”
15. Writing on wall reading: “No one gives up here. Long lives a free Cuba”
++NIGTH SHOTS++
16. Various of Olga Lilia Laurenti celebrating birthday with family
17. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) Olga Lilia Laurenti, retired journalist:
“We don’t care about the blackouts, nor politics, we don’t care about anything. This is us, a happy family. If we have to go somewhere, we go and if we have to get back, we do that, too. That's it.”
18. Music played from speaker in electric motorbike
19. Woman illuminating the way with flashlight
20. Various of cars driving by and moon
STORYLINE:
As tensions deepen between Cuba and the U.S. after it attacked Venezuela and disrupted oil shipments, so have the woes of Santa Cruz del Norte.

People in this town east of Havana are plunged into darkness daily and forced to cook with coal and firewood, but not everyone can afford this new reality.

Minorkys Hoyos Ruiz dropped a handful of cassava cubes into an old pot she filled with water from a barrel and placed it over a tiny, makeshift grill inside her home.

“You live with what you have,” she said, noting she had no other food available at that moment.

The few rechargeable items that used to light her small, disheveled home at night have broken down, and she began to bump into things until a neighbor gifted her an improvised lantern made with fuel and a reused baby food jar.

“When it’s dark, I don’t see,” said Hoyos, a 53-year-old diabetic.

It was late afternoon as she cooked, but her home was already dark.

The smell of sulfur hits hard in this town that produces petroleum and is home to one of Cuba’s largest thermoelectric plants that is cranking once again. But people here are without power despite being surrounded by energy sources.

Near the main entrance to Santa Cruz del Norte, long mural splayed with the following message in all caps: “NO ONE GIVES UP HERE. LONG LIVE A FREE CUBA.”

Juan Alberto Varona, a retired petroleum worker, washes clothes in a bucket on the sidewalk.



But people wonder how long they can hold out.















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