The UN special rapporteur has said that the decades-long US embargo on Cuba is now having a severe impact on the humanitarian situation in the island nation.
The ongoing sanctions have caused immense hardships for the Cuban population, particularly impacting education, food security, and health care, she said.
Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur of the United Nations Human Rights Council, voiced her observations on Friday while on a visit to the Caribbean nation.
She said there had been deterioration in all sectors in Cuba due to the trade and financial restrictions imposed by Washington since the Cold War era.
“The embargos have exacerbated the humanitarian situation in Cuba… and have been designed to prevent Cuba from receiving any economic revenue, especially in hard currency,” she said.
Her comments came a month after the UN member states adopted a resolution, for the 33rd consecutive year, calling for an end to the economic blockade.
“For low-income groups, higher inflation as well as scarcity of resources makes it very difficult to get proper nutrition,” she said, and urged the US to stop using sanctions and “maximum pressure constraints”.
An economic and energy crisis has battered Cuba since 2020, with the island country witnessing a plummeting gross domestic product (GDP), along with inflation, food shortages, and blackouts.
Meanwhile, responding to the development, a US State Department spokesperson on Friday said that the sanctions were not to be blamed for Cuba’s situation, and that it was the island’s communist-run government that had brought the economic problems upon itself.
“The embargo does not prohibit Cuba’s access to world markets or trade with third countries. US law explicitly allows the export of food, medicine, and medical equipment to Cuba,” the spokesperson stated.
Experts, however, point out that the spokesperson failed to address how a country under embargo would realistically manage to pay for food and medicine for its population if its hard currency options and outside trade are curtailed.
