A Cuban mother captured by journalist Patrick Oppmann from CNN during a protest in Havana succinctly summarized the tragedy faced by the Cuban people: “The children are going without food, without going to school, we are desperate”.
Oppmann published the video of the testimony on Friday, recorded the night before amid the protests that shook the Cuban capital from May 13 to 15, driven by prolonged blackouts and extreme food shortages.
"Women are out there; we have already lost 20 pounds, and the stress is overwhelming because we cannot support our children. The men are at home without work, already desperate. We can't take it anymore; we are not human beings," the woman said with a broken voice.
The mother described a dire situation: "The food we have in the freezer, by tomorrow we won't have any food. No food, no job, no money."
The outbreak of protests began on May 13 when residents of San Miguel del Padrón demonstrated in front of the municipal government headquarters with the slogan "Electricity and food!", in one of the most visible expressions of accumulated discontent.
The United States Embassy in Havana reported "numerous accounts of protests across Havana" on the same day and issued a security alert on May 14 due to power outages and social unrest.
The words of this mother are not an isolated case. According to the Food Monitor Program (FMP), 96.91% of the Cuban population lacked adequate access to food in April 2026, and nearly one in three households reported that at least one member went to bed hungry in the 30 days prior.
A report from the FMP in April documented critical levels of food insecurity in five provinces: Havana, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Guantánamo, and Santiago de Cuba.
79.75% of those surveyed by the FMP attributed the shortages to poor state management, not to the U.S. embargo.
The food crisis is exacerbated by power outages of up to 24-25 hours a day, with an electricity deficit of 1,885 MW, which directly impacts the refrigeration, transportation, and distribution of food.
Eighty percent of Cuban households reported that power outages affected food preparation, and 48.3% lost food due to lack of refrigeration.
The World Food Program identified Cuba as a country facing significant food availability issues in its 2026-2030 planning, documenting declines in powdered milk imports by 71%, corn by 75%, and wheat by 58%.
The protests of young people in the streets of Havana are part of a wave of mobilizations that Cubalex recorded at 229 protests just in March 2026, the highest monthly figure since records began.
Deaths due to malnutrition in Cuba increased by 74% between 2022 and 2023, rising from 43 to 75 cases according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information, a trend that the deterioration of 2026 threatens to exacerbate even further.
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