A Cuban elderly woman has gone viral on Facebook, where she expressed her outrage over the electrical crisis the country is experiencing: 23 consecutive hours without electricity or water, unable to cook and trapped in the heat with no escape.
The video was recorded by Juan Luis Vasallo Palomo at the request of the lady, his neighbor, who insisted that he film it. In a short time, it accumulated over 90,000 views, a testament to the fact that his complaint resonated with an exhausted population.
The woman, named Gina, questioned why the electricity is only available for a short time at night. "It's a deception, a deception what they do to us, because when we need it, it's during the day to prepare something to eat, if it comes at all," she said, with a mix of exhaustion and anger.
The elderly woman also described a paradox that the regime does not resolve: electricity and water never coincide. "When they supply water, there's no current; when they supply current, there's no water," she questioned.
And he added a direct complaint: "That is an abuse against the people, because the rulers are living as they please. And they take everything to their homes."
"They are killing us slowly," he concluded.
What Gina describes is not an isolated perception. The regime itself admitted that 2.7 million Cubans have water access issues, while international organizations such as the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) raise that figure to 3.5 million. One of the causes is the lack of electricity for the pumping of the liquid.
According to the official report from the Unión Eléctrica (UNE), on Tuesday the National Electric System (SEN) had only 1,223 MW available against a demand of 2,464 MW, with a projected deficit of 1,831 MW during peak hours.
In September, for at least 23 days, outages exceeding 2,000 MW were recorded. Cuba has already experienced eight total national blackouts in 2026 so far, the latest occurring on September 18, when the national electrical system completely collapsed.
Older adults are the ones who suffer the most from this crisis. Cuba is the most aged country in Latin America: more than 2.5 million people are 60 years old or older. With a minimum pension of 4,000 pesos —less than 10 dollars at the informal exchange rate— and without family support networks due to mass emigration, many Cuban elders face old age under conditions of extreme vulnerability.
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