Residents of Avenida Boyeros in Havana blocked traffic on one of the main arteries of the Cuban capital this Friday by placing garbage bins on the roadway, in protest of more than three consecutive days without electricity. The action was reported in real time by independent journalist José L. Tan Estrada through his Facebook account under the hashtag #TanteandoCuba.
From the location, sources in contact with Tan Estrada confirmed that the internet connection in the area was "very, very poor" and that the police had already been present at the site since the early moments of the demonstration.
“They blocked the streets with garbage bins,” reported the journalist, adding that the residents were staging a spontaneous protest in response to their accumulated frustration.
The outlet La Tijera also showed children and women blocking another area of the Avenue.
Boyeros Avenue —which connects downtown Havana with José Martí International Airport and runs through the municipality of the same name— is a major thoroughfare, and its blockage has an immediate impact on mobility in the capital.
The protest occurs at the worst moment of the Cuban electricity crisis this year. This Friday, the Electric Union predicted a maximum shortfall of 1,990 MW during peak hours, with only 840 MW available against a demand of 2,800 MW, which means covering just 30% of the country's needs.
At six in the morning, the National Electric System recorded 790 MW available and 1,480 MW affected by a capacity deficit.
The M1603 and M2044 circuits in the Boyeros municipality accumulated on that same day 38 hours and 29 minutes of outage, according to the outage history. The unexpected shutdown of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas the previous Thursday further exacerbated the situation at the national level.
The municipality of Boyeros has a documented history of social unrest due to power outages. In September of this year, residents of the Fontanar neighborhood—also located on Avenida Rancho Boyeros—overturned containers and beat pots in protest against cuts lasting more than twenty hours per day; the regime responded with a dozen patrol cars, violence against the protesters, and at least two arrests.
In November 2024, residents of Boyeros had already blocked the same avenue after a week without electricity or water, met with a similar response from law enforcement.
The crisis is not limited to Havana. Recently, residents of Santa Rita in Granma took to the streets chanting "We want power!" in front of a police patrol, and residents of Real Campiña in Cienfuegos held pot-banging protests after five days without electricity.
The Minister of Energy and Mines, Vicente de la O Levy, acknowledged at the end of October that the main cause of the crisis is financial: the lack of fuel leaves nearly 1,000 MW of distributed generation out of service.
Cubalex documented 766 protests in 141 municipalities during the first half of 2026, most of which were related to the crisis in basic services, a figure that illustrates the extent of the accumulated discontent throughout the island.
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