A ship carrying nearly 100 tons of food, medicine and other essential goods has docked in Havana from Colombia, the latest in a series of humanitarian shipments to reach Cuba in recent months as the island continues to grapple with the effects of a US energy embargo.
The vessel departed from Cartagena in early June and crossed into Havana Bay early on Friday morning flying the Colombian flag, escorted by a small Cuban auxiliary vessel, the Associated Press confirmed. According to Colombia’s Presidential Agency for International Cooperation, the shipment was sent on the orders of President Gustavo Petro and included non-perishable food, medicine, hospital supplies, electrical materials and solar panels, alongside a further seven tons of goods collected by solidarity groups.
The delivery follows a similar shipment last weekend, when a vessel carrying 1,700 tons of essential goods from Mexico and Belize arrived in Havana.
The aid comes against a backdrop of escalating economic pressure on Cuba from Washington. In late January, US President Donald Trump threatened tariffs on any country that sells or supplies oil to Cuba — a move that has deepened a crisis already caused by long-standing US sanctions. The United States is pressing the Cuban government to release political prisoners and move towards political and economic liberalisation in exchange for the lifting of those sanctions.
Cuba currently produces only around 40 per cent of its own oil needs, leaving the island semi-paralysed and subject to severe and frequent power outages — a situation that has prompted Colombia, Mexico and Belize among others to step in with direct humanitarian shipments in recent months.
