UN Official: U.S. Sanctions Are Disrupting Humanitarian Aid to Cuba

Francisco Pichón: If the fuel blockade continues, the humanitarian consequences for Cuba will grow deeper and could become irreversible, opens the report. Infant mortality has doubled. Food prices have risen by 18%.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Francisco, what's the current situation in Cuba?

Francisco Pichón: Cuba is currently facing a humanitarian emergency, with severe impacts that have been building up for months. Certainly, the oil blockade has worsened the situation. In reality, this is a situation shaped by years of cumulative impacts from hurricanes and droughts, as well as a worsening economic crisis in which the country’s economy has contracted by nearly 15%. All of this takes place within a context of sanctions and restrictions on international financing.

Liz Oliva Fernández: What have you seen on the ground?

Francisco Pichón: What we are seeing is a progressive deterioration in the situation for millions of Cubans, who have to reorganize their lives around a few hours of electricity. Night has become day. People wake up in the middle of the night to cook and store water. It has reached a point of threatening people’s lives, particularly the most vulnerable. The clearest example of this is the healthcare sector, which historically has been one of the strongest in Latin America. Today, it’s under extraordinary pressure. Infant mortality has doubled to 9.9 per 1,000 live births. Survival rates for children with cancer have dropped from 85% to around 65%. Around 67,000 children are at risk of missing essential vaccines due to disruptions in energy and transportation. Around 32,000 pregnant women face additional risks, as access to prenatal monitoring has become very difficult. We’re talking about more than 110,000 older cancer patients alongside millions of Cubans with chronic diseases, who are struggling to access the treatment they need, as well as the medicines required for their conditions. It’s well known that only 30% of the essential medicines are available in the country. Food security has also been heavily affected. There are greater crop losses due to a lack of refrigeration. And we know that food prices have increased by 18%. Social protection systems, such as school lunch programs and elderly care centers, have been affected. The school year has also been reduced.

Liz Oliva Fernández: When you arrived in Cuba, was this the reality you found? When and how did things get to this point?

Francisco Pichón: I arrived in Cuba in November 2022. But we’ve never seen anything this severe before. No fuel shipments have arrived, except for a Russian tanker, which provided some relief to the electricity supply. But very quickly, we were back in a critical situation. And this has been made worse by falling tourism revenues, largely due to the country’s energy crisis, along with declining income from medical services and the impact on the mining industry. All of this is happening in the context of decades of U.S. sanctions, and limited access to development financing because of those sanctions.

Liz Oliva Fernández: What role does the UN have in responding to this humanitarian crisis?

Francisco Pichón: The 23 UN agencies active in Cuba work under a cooperation framework that was agreed with the government. Our colleagues at the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs describe it as a “hyper-prioritized” plan. It does not cover all needs, but this plan is designed to reach nearly two million people. And for that goal we require around $91 million, of which one third has been mobilized so far. And we continue working hard to overcome all the challenges.

Liz Oliva Fernández: What are the main challenges?

Francisco Pichón: The most urgent challenge is clearly the fuel shortages. The UN system itself is being directly impacted by the shortages. But more recently, we’ve also been facing additional challenges linked to the impact of [Trump’s] executive orders.

Liz Oliva Fernández: The strongest executive order on the oil restrictions was issued on January 29. But since then, new executive orders against Cuba have been introduced, which particularly affect Cuba’s relations with foreign organizations and corporations, ranging from the ability to establish or maintain businesses in Cuba to the use of international credit and banking cards. Does this also affect the United Nations?

Francisco Pichón: Yes, definitely. We are affected. Not only by the restrictions themselves, but also by what we refer to as over-compliance with those measures. Many private actors, including correspondent banks, logistics providers, and shipping companies, respond to sanctions with excessive caution. In English we call it “over-compliance.” This creates uncertainty around signed contracts, and it affects contracts being negotiated. We’re also seeing delays from logistics providers in the delivery of urgent supplies for the country.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Everyone is too afraid to establish direct commitments with Cuba.

Francisco Pichón: Not only with Cuba, but also with the UN system. That should not be happening because there are humanitarian exemptions designed to protect humanitarian spaces and humanitarian actors.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Do you have any specific examples?

Francisco Pichón: I have some concrete examples. There are three agencies that have reported this situation. For example, UNICEF has seven critical humanitarian shipments, valued around $630,000, which are being impacted by recent logistical restrictions. And I want to be specific about the supplies because some are extremely sensitive and intended for highly vulnerable populations. Emergency medical kits, supplies for newborns, nutrition items for pregnant and breastfeeding women. Some of these supplies have been redirected through alternative routes that are also more expensive. The World Health Organization is even more affected as they are dealing with supplies such as medicines, antibiotics and reagents that must be kept cold. With the closure or reduction of the air transportation services, they’ve had to rely on maritime transport. This has impacted the delivery times. The World Food Programme, which leads the food security plan together with FAO, told us that more than 2,900 metric tons of food had already been brought and right now are affected by disruptions in maritime shipping services.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Are those the cancellations by shipping companies?

Francisco Pichón: Yes. Right now, WFP, UNICEF and PAHO/WHO are actively looking for alternative routes and renegotiating arrangements, often at a higher cost, to make sure that these supplies, which have already been purchased, can reach the country as quickly as possible. So yes, this is real. We are documenting these cases and asking the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to help bring attention to the situation because it’s not always recognized that humanitarian aid, even when it’s exempt from sanctions, can still be affected. And in this case, because of the impact of the executive orders, we haven’t been immune to the impact of over-compliance, or excessive caution, which closes humanitarian spaces and weakens the protection the humanitarian operations needs to fulfill their objective of saving lives and protecting people. This is a difficult reality to fully grasp, and it should matter to the rest of the world, to all humanitarian actors, and to all countries with the capacity to support Cuba at a moment like this. When human lives are at risk, a response cannot wait.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Do you fear reaching the point where the UN is no longer able to do much more?

Francisco Pichón: I don’t think that will happen in the immediate future, as we are actively adapting our plan. We want to invest more in anticipatory action in order to save lives and be better prepared, with supplies already available in the country. The World Food Program, as the lead of our logistics sector, has managed to access around 15,000 liters of fuel through the private sector. We are confident we will reach a higher volume. The good news is we’ve been able to move nearly 70 containers from the ports using private transport providers. And I also want to highlight the role the private sector has had in all of this process. We’ve seen a great deal of willingness to work with both the UN system and the government to move aid that is already stuck in ports and warehouses. This is still a very modest portion of the capacity required.

Liz Oliva Fernández: The U.S. government initially announced $3 million in humanitarian aid, followed by another $6 million, of which, the first $3 million have already been delivered. They later announced an additional $100 million, but they made it a condition to deliver that aid through religious organizations such as CARITAS.

Francisco Pichón: We know the announcement of the $100 million humanitarian package to be delivered through the Catholic Church, CARITAS, and independent humanitarian organizations. For us, as the UN system, any form of assistance that Cuba can receive through any available channel is important.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Isn’t it a basic principle of humanitarian aid to work in coordination with the local government?

Francisco Pichón: I think all actors, from the UN system to international NGOs, recognize the need for coordination on the ground. When I have been in the field carrying out monitoring visits, working alongside NGOs and Cuba’s Civil Defense, there are essential mechanisms on the ground that are crucial for identifying the people who are most vulnerable. And that kind of cooperation is crucial to making sure humanitarian aid reaches affected populations in the most direct and appropriate way possible.

Liz Oliva Fernández: I’m asking this because the U.S. doesn’t want the Cuban government involved in the distribution of humanitarian aid.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Can you work with local and government institutions on the ground and still ensure that humanitarian aid reaches its intended recipients? Is that something you have done before?

Francisco Pichón: All of our efforts are designed to complement the national response. From the early days when the energy crisis started to have an impact across sectors such as health, it was designed to complement the government’s contingency plan to prioritize and protect essential services. When we developed and launched our action plan in late March, it was designed to complement the government’s contingency plan, which has been updated several times based on available resources. The work of the UN system itself is a relatively modest contribution compared to the scale of the government’s response with the resources and infrastructure they have. I can’t really think of a situation where UN agencies could work without recognizing the need to cooperate with the government, non-state actors and NGOs to ensure that aid is delivered effectively.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Of the $109 million pledged by the United States, only $3 million have reportedly reached the ground. Do you believe the U.S. is now facing the unintended consequences of its own executive orders and sanctions against Cuba when it comes to delivering the remaining funds?

Francisco Pichón: I think that’s a question you would have to ask them.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Do you have any idea why the rest of the aid has not been delivered?

Francisco Pichón: No. I do know that the first $3 million have been delivered, and they’ve provided important support to the communities where the aid has been concentrated.

Liz Oliva Fernández: We’ve been talking about humanitarian crises from the start, so let me ask you: Do you see the humanitarian crisis in Cuba as the result of internal factors, or a crisis caused from the outside?

Francisco Pichón: This is a very different crisis from those the UN system has faced before. Humanitarian needs have continued to evolve, as limited access to energy remains a major factor worsening the situation and increasing humanitarian needs. In that aspect, this is a very different kind of crisis.

Liz Oliva Fernández: Do you have hopes for Cuba’s future?

Francisco Pichón: We always remain hopeful because we need it at the start of each day to do our best work and find solutions. And so far, I believe that the number of people reached around one million under the current conditions, gives us hope that we can continue to move forward and scale up solutions to better respond to humanitarian needs.