Cuba's Energy Crisis Fuels Public Outcry and Pessimistic Commentary

Cuban entrepreneur Yilian Illas Villafaña posted a video denouncing President Miguel Díaz‑Canel’s call for “creative resistance” as the island endures power outages lasting more than 40 hours, days without water, months without gas and severe shortages of medicines – over 70 % of essential drugs are out of stock and 100,000 patients, including 12,000 children, await surgeries. The backlash has included cacerolazo protests in several Havana neighborhoods.

Comedian Ulises Toirac echoed the gloom in a televised interview, describing Cuba as “a maze without a solution” and highlighting the same energy failures, chronic food and medicine scarcity, and a two‑hour‑a‑day electricity supply. He noted that 1.25 million Cubans have emigrated between 2021 and 2024, cited censorship that bars him from performing publicly, and blamed decades of under‑investment rather than the U.S. embargo for the electrical collapse.