A plane from the Brazilian Air Force landed this Tuesday at the Antonio Maceo Grajales International Airport in Santiago de Cuba with the first of two shipments of powdered milk donated by the government of Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
The total shipment amounts to 48 tons and is carried out on two military flights headed to the capital of Santiago.
The first flight transported 16 tons and took off on Monday from the Canoas Air Base in Rio Grande do Sul. The second flight, carrying the remaining 32 tons, departed early this morning from Porto Alegre International Airport.
The operation was recently decided in a meeting led by Lula, with the participation of the ministers of Defense, Foreign Relations, Agrarian Development, and Civil House, as well as the commander of the Air Force and the president of the National Supply Company (Conab), which provides food supplies.
Coordination is the responsibility of the Brazilian Agency for Cooperation.
The statement from the Brazilian Presidency noted that "new donations of food and medicines are being evaluated by the Brazilian government."
This shipment adds to a larger humanitarian aid announced by Brazil on March 19, which included 170,000 tons of rice, 150 tons of black beans, and 500 tons of powdered milk channeled through the World Food Programme.
In May, Lula's government also donated medications to treat a thousand patients on the island.
However, the aid has not been without controversy. In March, allegations emerged that products donated by Brazil, Mexico, and Chile were being diverted and sold in dollar stores managed by the military conglomerate GAESA, accusations that the Cuban regime denied.
Despite the humanitarian gesture, Cuba maintains an unpaid debt of 676 million dollars to Brazil, mainly for the financing of the construction of the Port of Mariel, and a law passed in 2026 prohibits new credit operations with defaulting countries, which would exclude the island from future Brazilian loans.
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