Cuba is going dark.
Not in some poetic, metaphorical sense. The island is literally running out of light. Blackouts sweep through Havana and the provinces with increasing regularity, and behind each power cut lies a cascade of suffering that most of us, scrolling through our feeds from well-lit rooms, will never fully grasp. What started as a chronic economic squeeze has now become something far more alarming — a full-blown humanitarian emergency, where food rots, medicine runs out, and ambulances can't reach the sick.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately. From my wheelchair here in Tirana, thousands of kilometres from the Caribbean, I feel a strange kinship with the idea of systems failing around you while you're expected to just... carry on. I know what it means when the infrastructure of daily life breaks down. When something as basic as movement — or electricity — becomes a negotiation with fate.
An Island Running on Empty
Let me put the numbers in perspective, and I'll keep the science simple. Cuba produces roughly 40,000 barrels of oil per day. That sounds like a lot until you realise it covers less than half of what the country actually needs. For decades, the gap was filled by imports — first from the Soviet Union, then from Venezuela and Mexico. Today, those supply lines are nearly severed.
Venezuela suspended shipments. Mexico, fearing trade retaliation from Washington, followed suit. The result? A productive system in paralysis. GDP has plummeted by over 15% since 2020, tourism is shrinking, and the energy deficit doesn't just mean dark streets — it means the entire food chain, the school system, hospital refrigerators, and public transport all grind to a halt.
Think about that for a moment. Energy isn't an abstract commodity. It's the thing that keeps insulin cold, that powers the ventilator in the ICU, that lets a child study after sunset. When you strip energy from a society, you don't just inconvenience people. You threaten their lives.
The Healthcare System Is Bleeding
For decades, Cuba's healthcare was the pride of the revolution — a system that, despite everything, trained world-class doctors and kept infant mortality remarkably low. That story is unravelling now.
Health Minister José Ángel Portal Miranda put it bluntly: the sanctions aren't just paralysing the economy, they're threatening "basic human security," because "you can't damage a state's economy without hitting its people". He's right. And the numbers behind his words are devastating.
Five million people with chronic illnesses risk having their treatments interrupted. Thousands of cancer patients are waiting for radiotherapy or chemotherapy that isn't coming. Hospitals in Havana report half-empty wards — not because patients have recovered, but because there's nothing left to treat them with. Machines sit idle. Doctors are forced to triage not by medical urgency, but by what scarce resources remain - greenMe.pdf).
I've spent a significant part of my life in hospitals. I've had Deep Brain Stimulation surgery, I've had it removed years later, I've felt the cold fluorescent light of operating theatres more times than I care to count. I know the smell of antiseptic and the sound of monitors beeping at 3 a.m. And I know this: a hospital without supplies isn't a hospital. It's a waiting room for tragedy.
The Geopolitics of Suffering
Here's where it gets uncomfortable. Cuba's crisis didn't fall from the sky. It was engineered — at least in part — by deliberate policy choices made in Washington.
The United States has imposed punitive tariffs on anyone selling petroleum to Cuba, effectively making energy trade with the island toxic for any potential partner - greenMe.pdf). Washington speaks openly about "regime change," wielding economic pressure as a blunt instrument of political will - greenMe.pdf). After intervening in Venezuela's oil flows, the White House tightened the noose further, cutting off what remained of Cuba's energy lifeline.
Havana says it's open to dialogue — but only "without pressure and between equals". So far, that stance has produced nothing concrete. And while governments posture, 89% of Cuba's population now lives in extreme poverty. Since 2020, the population has shrunk by over 15% — a silent exodus of people who simply couldn't hold on any longer.
Let that sink in. One in every six or seven Cubans has left.
There's a humanitarian flotilla planned for March — the Nuestra América Flotilla — backed by figures like Jeremy Corbyn, Rashida Tlaib, and Ada Colau, aiming to bring food, medicine, and essential goods across the Caribbean Sea. "We will break the siege," the organisers promise. It's a powerful symbolic gesture. Whether it changes anything structurally is another question entirely.
Life in the Hum of Generators
In Cuban homes, life now follows the rhythm of power cuts. The hum of generators — for those lucky enough to have one — has replaced the background noise of normal life. Queues snake outside shops. Rationing, a ghost from the 1990s "Special Period," has returned with a vengeance.
The difference this time? The social safety net that once cushioned the blow is threadbare. The solidarity networks, the state provisions, the sense that the system would at least keep you alive — all of it is fraying .
And yet.
The Cuban people haven't surrendered. Neighbourhood solidarity persists. Ingenuity flourishes in the cracks. People share what little they have, rig solutions from nothing, and somehow keep going. I recognise that spirit. It's the same spirit that got me through years of surgeries, through learning to navigate a world not built for my body, through finishing a degree in astronomy when every lecture hall was an obstacle course.
Never give up. It's not just a slogan I repeat. It's a survival strategy I've lived. And I see it reflected in the faces of Cubans who refuse to be defined by their crisis.
The Science of Collapse — Simplified
Let me break down what's happening in energy terms, as simply as I can. An island nation that produces half its energy needs domestically is, by definition, energy-dependent. When external supply is cut — whether by political sanctions, diplomatic pressure, or supplier decisions — the system doesn't gradually decline. It collapses in cascading failures.
No fuel means no electricity generation. No electricity means no refrigeration, which means food spoils and vaccines degrade. No fuel also means no transport, which means supply chains break, medical emergencies go unanswered, and economic activity grinds to a standstill. Each failure feeds the next. Physicists call these kinds of systems coupled — pull one thread, and the whole fabric comes apart.
Cuba's crisis is a textbook case of what happens when energy security is weaponised. And it should concern all of us, because the lesson isn't limited to one Caribbean island. Any nation overly dependent on external energy sources is vulnerable to the same dynamics. The physics doesn't care about ideology.
Who Pays the Price?
This is the question that keeps me up at night. In the grand chess game between Washington and Havana, who actually suffers? Not the diplomats. Not the politicians. Not the pundits on cable news.
It's the mother who can't find antibiotics for her child. The cancer patient whose chemotherapy was cancelled. The elderly man sitting in the dark, wondering if the power will come back before his food spoils. The young woman who packed a bag and left everything she knew because staying meant slow suffocation.
The risk — and this is the cruellest part — is that geopolitical pressure ends up crushing precisely those who have no voice in the great international standoffs: ordinary citizens, trapped in a crisis they didn't choose.
I've spent my career at FreeAstroScience arguing that science and culture are tools for human development, that knowledge should serve people, that every barrier can be confronted with education and solidarity. Cuba's crisis tests all of those beliefs. Because what good is knowledge when the lights are off? What good is solidarity when the world looks away?
Looking Forward — Or Trying To
I don't have a neat conclusion. The situation in Cuba doesn't lend itself to tidy endings. The Nuestra América Flotilla will sail in March, and it will bring relief — temporary, symbolic, necessary - greenMe.pdf). International attention will flicker, like the electricity in Havana, and then move on to the next headline.
What I do know is this: crises like Cuba's demand that we pay attention. They demand that we ask hard questions about how energy is distributed, who controls it, and what happens to human beings when it's taken away. They demand that we see past the geopolitics and look at the people.
Cuba is tired. But Cuba is not resigned.
And from this wheelchair in Tirana, from this small corner of the world where I've built a life around the belief that science can change lives and that giving up is never an option — I refuse to look away. Neither should you.
— Gerd Dani, President of Free AstroScience Tirana, Albania — February 2026
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