A video circulated on social media shows a nighttime protest in "El Hueco," a neighborhood located on the border between the municipalities of La Lisa and Marianao in Havana, after more than 36 consecutive hours without electricity.
In the images recorded this week, a fire can be seen burning in the street alongside silhouettes of people in the background, while a woman shouts slogans of desperation and frustration against the regime.
"We are already tired of so much hunger, so much misery, and so much darkness. We have been without power for 36 hours. How much longer, how much longer?" is heard shouting the woman who is filming the scene.
The protester also claims that mothers and children are going without food, that there is no water, and demands the government's departure: "They should go! What we want is for them to leave us in peace so we can try to live our lives."
One of the most compelling points made in the video directly targets the state electricity company, accusing it of lying about the duration of the power outage.
"The electric company is the first to say that we've only been without power for two hours; we've been without electricity for 36 hours already, that's enough, it's a tremendous lack of respect," the woman asserts.
The protest in El Hueco is not an isolated incident
That same night from Wednesday to Thursday, massive banging of pots and pans shook all neighborhoods of Santiago de Cuba, accompanied by a military presence on the streets. Protests were also reported in Buena Vista and other neighborhoods in Havana.
The electrical collapse that triggers these demonstrations has structural roots. On June 15, the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant went out of service due to a boiler leak, marking its 15th failure this year, raising the projected impact for the nighttime peak to 2,085 MW compared to a mere availability of 995 MW and a national demand of 3,100 MW.
In Santiago de Cuba, the electric company reorganized the power outages into nine blocks, leaving each area with only one or two hours of electricity per day. In Havana, the blackouts ranged from 12 to 22 hours daily.
La Lisa and Marianao have a history of protests over power outages
On June 5th, residents of Marianao staged protests with pots and pans demanding "water and electricity," and in March 2026, during the blackout that left 68% of the island without power, both municipalities had already taken to the streets.
The protests in June coincide with the Extraordinary Plenary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, held on Wednesday, where the regime debated more than 20 economic reforms while the population took to the streets in several provinces.
"It's been 36 hours without electricity. This is an injustice!" the woman from El Hueco repeated. She ended her video with a question that captures the exhaustion of thousands of Cubans: "How long will this last?"
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