Yandira González Vilar, a Cuban mother living in Chicago, United States, broke her silence in a Facebook video that has gathered over 20,000 views: she hasn’t received a single message from her son in Cuba for four days, since Monday at six in the evening, and the anxiety has left her sleepless.
«How do I tell my heart that I can't hear from my son? I can't even sleep. I've been unable to sleep for four days because my phone doesn't ring to tell me, "Mommy, I'm okay,"» she says through tears in the recording. «This has nothing to do with politics; we are desperate mothers who do not know about our children.»
His testimony describes the crisis plaguing the island: "First, without electricity and without medication. Now, without communication, for more than four days already," he summarizes in the video.
The infrastructure of ETECSA relies on the national electric grid
The Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) admitted in July 2026 that power outages disable 47.5% of its radio bases and 56.5% of its cabinets nationwide.
The first week of September was particularly critical. On the 5th, the maximum impact on the electrical system reached 2,396 MW, and on the 9th it hit 2,292 MW with prolonged outages in Havana and Holguín.
These deficits were compounded by technical failures inherent to ETECSA. On September 2, the company reported a malfunction that left all of Cuba without SMS service and paralyzed Transfermóvil for hours. A few days later, the Isle of Youth was left completely without mobile phone service due to damage to its two connection routes with the national network.
This is not the first summer that Cuban families are experiencing this distress. In August, Cuban mothers described this season as "the worst summer" due to the electricity crisis, inflation, food shortages, and lack of communication.
Yandira González Vilar claims to speak on behalf of some of those Cuban women: "I am raising my voice for all the mothers who are on the other side of the world and do not know about our children. How much longer will this go on?"
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