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Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla took advantage of World Population Day this Saturday to publish an institutional message on X in which the regime claims to reaffirm "its commitment to the well-being of the people" and the "principles of social justice of the Revolution," while Cuba is experiencing the worst demographic crisis in its history and the fifth anniversary of the largest social uprising since 1959.
In the tweet published from his official account, accompanied by an institutional image of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Rodríguez Parrilla attributed the country's "difficult socioeconomic situation" to the "intensified blockade, secondary sanctions, energy blockade, and threats of military aggression," without ever mentioning the demographic catastrophe that the regime itself has helped to create.
The message omits that more than one million Cubans have left the island since 2021, that the fertility rate fell to 1.29 children per woman, and that in 2025 only 68,051 births were recorded, the lowest historical number since 1899.
The UN warns that if the trend is not reversed, the Cuban population could decrease to 5.6 million by 2100, compared to the current estimates of between eight and 9.4 million following the mass exodus.
25.7% of Cubans are over sixty years old, making the island the oldest country in Latin America.
The government itself postponed the 2025 census due to the economic crisis and rescheduled it for this year, which prevents an accurate understanding of the actual size of the population.
The publication arrives at a moment of deep contradiction: this Saturday marks five years since the protests of July 11, 2021, the largest popular demonstrations in Cuba since 1959.
At least 338 people remain imprisoned directly for their participation in those events, within a total of between 1,260 and 1,281 political prisoners recorded by human rights organizations as of May 2026.
The humanitarian pardon of April 2, 2026, which freed 2,010 inmates, explicitly excluded the protesters from July 11.
The political contradiction is compounded by the energy crisis. The day before, the National Electric System experienced a total blackout at 4:30 PM, marking the fourth such incident in 2026 and the eighth in the last 18 months, sparking a wave of ironic comments on social media that linked the blackout to the anniversary of July 11. "Remember, tomorrow is July 11. The 10th is gone and won't return until the 12th," wrote a Cuban user.
The record electricity deficit of 2,341 MW was recorded on July 8, with an available generation of only 935 MW compared to a demand of 3,100 MW. Power outages in Havana average 15 hours daily in July, and some areas have exceeded 72 consecutive hours without electricity.
Days earlier, Rodríguez Parrilla had led a diplomatic offensive at the UN on July 7 to denounce the U.S. embargo, estimating the damages at 8.103 billion dollars between March 2025 and February 2026.
However, the decline of infrastructures such as the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant—without major maintenance since 2010 and with 17 outages so far in 2026—reflects decades of negligence that cannot be attributed to external factors.
While the chancellor reiterated on social media the "commitment" of the Party and the Government to "sustainable development," thousands of Cubans spent this Saturday without electricity, marking the fifth anniversary of the protests that the regime has never acknowledged for what they were: a desperate cry from a weary people.
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