6 August 2026
UN human rights experts* today condemned
recent measures by the United States against Cuba,
denouncing them as an attempt to alter the constitutional
order of a sovereign State through threats and
coercion.
They urged the international community and
civil society to act swiftly to prevent a “silent Gaza”
from unfolding on the island, as recently invoked by four
members of the US Congress during their visit to
Cuba.
The US has expanded unilateral sanctions
targeting key sectors of the Cuban economy since June 2026.
The latest sanctions announced on 23 July, include energy
companies, which has further blocked fuel procurements, even
for humanitarian reasons, at a time when Cuba is facing
acute fuel shortages and has recently experienced its third
major nationwide blackout. Energy, transport, irrigation and
basic services are failing simultaneously,
disproportionately affecting women, children, older persons
and other vulnerable groups, including peasant farmers in
the rural economy.
“The humanitarian consequences
are already unfolding into a full-blown crisis, threatening
the rights to health, to life, to food and to
development,” the experts said, following reports that
uncollected waste is accumulating in parts of Havana,
deepening the serious risk of diseases spreading.
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UN
agencies in Cuba have warned of mounting risks of food
insecurity and shortages of medicines and basic necessities,
with repeated national grid collapses and prolonged
blackouts disrupting health care services and causing
critical shortages of medicines and cancer-treatment
capacity.
“Food must never be used as an instrument of
political pressure. Measures that knowingly deprive a
population of the means to survive strike at the most basic
guarantees of the rights to life and diminish the core of
human dignity,” the experts said.
On 20 July, the US
State Department released a report entitled “Cuba: The
Capital of 21st-Century Communism” describing Cuba as a
multifaceted threat to US national security and hemispheric
stability. The experts observed that the report offers no
concrete evidence that Cuba supports terrorism or subversive
activity, and expressed concern that only political and
ideological considerations appear to justify the
continuation of coercive measures.
The experts
stressed that the US’s unlawful unilateral coercive
measures against Cuba contravene Article 2 of the UN
Charter, and form part of a broader regime-change strategy
encompassing the decades-long embargo on Cuba.
“The
US Government must cease all threats and hostile acts
against Cuba’s sovereignty and revoke all measures it has
imposed on the country that stand contrary to international
law,” said the experts
“The Security Council and
General Assembly should urgently address these threats as a
matter of international peace and security,” they
added.
