A Cuban mother identified as Lianet Nina Yanza posted a video on Facebook that starkly summarizes what thousands of families on the Island experience: in the middle of the night, without electricity, she manually fans her baby to ward off mosquitoes and help him sleep.
"Look at this, using a fan to blow air so the baby can sleep, because the mosquitoes won't lift the weight," Lianet says in the recording.
"That's not counting that right now, when my hand gets tired, we're going to be eaten alive, him and me. Both of us are going to be eaten by mosquitoes. Why? Because there’s no power. Just something normal," he lamented.
In the text that accompanied the publication, the woman detailed that at 4:30 in the morning the "Complete Electric Distribution" came on, but the houses remained in darkness, which has become quite habitual.
Exhausted, she issued a direct warning to the regime: "How far are you going to push the Cuban people? You are encouraging us to take to the streets and shout for change, only to then suppress us and harm families by imprisoning people. That's what you are provoking."
The video surpassed 136,000 views, reflecting the widespread frustration among the Cuban population in the face of an unrelenting crisis.
Since the energy crisis in Cuba worsened, a wave of mothers has documented the impact of power outages on their children on social media: babies covered in mosquito bites, children drenched in sweat, and families seeking refuge on rooftops to endure the nighttime heat.
At the end of August, several mothers agreed that "this has been the worst summer" since the energy crisis began.
Lianet herself, who resides in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality of Havana, already starred in another viral video on July 25, when she denounced power outages lasting between 60 and 90 hours in her municipality and labeled the government as "failed."
At the beginning of this week, the Electric Union reported a generation capacity of only 990 MW compared to a peak demand of 3,250 MW, resulting in a projected deficit of 2,290 MW. On Wednesday, blackouts simultaneously affected 70% of the country, according to data from the entity itself. Eleven of the 16 thermal power units remained out of service due to breakdowns or maintenance.
The highest historical deficit was recorded in July at 2,341 MW, and Cuba has experienced at least seven total national blackouts so far this year, with outages in some areas exceeding 72 consecutive hours.
Beyond physical exhaustion, the lack of electricity poses an increasing health risk. Power outages interrupt water pumping and force people to store it in household containers, which are conducive to breeding the Aedes aegypti mosquito.
In June, the Ministry of Public Health warned about a possible dengue epidemic with simultaneous circulation of all four serotypes of the virus.
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