Rodríguez thanked the United Nations agencies for their effort “to facilitate the arrival of material aid” to the island “in these difficult circumstances”
EFE/14ymedio, Havana, September 29, 2026 /
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez lamented on Monday that part of the humanitarian aid the UN has earmarked for the country is among the “more than 7,000 containers” that, he maintains, have been unable to reach the island because of US “pressure and threats” on international shipping companies.
Rodríguez made this point to the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator (OCHA), Tom Fletcher, during a meeting they held during the UN General Assembly in New York.
The head of Cuban diplomacy said on X that he updated Fletcher “on the daily harm to Cuban families caused by the extreme tightening of the blockade, the energy siege and the secondary sanctions of the US government against Cuba.”
He also expressed his gratitude for “the effort of the UN and its agencies to facilitate the arrival of material aid” to the island “in these difficult circumstances.”
He also expressed his gratitude for “the effort of the UN and its agencies to facilitate the arrival of material aid” to the island “in these difficult circumstances”
In May of this year, the French shipping company CMA CGM and the German company Hapag-Lloyd announced the suspension of shipments because of Trump’s decree expanding US sanctions on trade with Cuba to include “any foreign person” operating in the “energy, defense and related materiel, metals and mining, financial services, or security sectors of the Cuban economy, or any other sector of the Cuban economy.”
At the end of July, the Cuban government stated that the measures were keeping more than 7,000 containers held in various Caribbean ports with food, supplies for the energy and water sectors, and medicines. At the end of August, the United Nations System in Cuba denounced the “challenges” it has faced in transporting humanitarian aid to Cuba by sea, which has forced it to arrange for those resources to be sent by air, “with higher costs and delays.”
During that month, 14ymedio verified that CMA CGM cargo was already arriving on the island, something corroborated shortly afterwards by Deputy Prime Minister Óscar Pérez-Oliva Fraga, who confirmed that the French shipping company had resumed shipments, although only of food, medicines and medical supplies.
“There are foreign companies that have given in to these pressures and have withdrawn from the country. Others remain and continue working with us,” he stated.
Likewise, this summer the state-owned company Medicuba denounced the immobilization of two containers carrying a medication for the treatment of epilepsy in the Colombian port of Cartagena de Indias, because the German shipping company Hapag-Lloyd had refused to deliver the freight, citing compliance with the US embargo.
Translated by GH.
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