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Barbados prime minister: «There is a humanitarian crisis in Cuba»

Mia Mottley called for food and energy access on the island to be dealt with first, in a CNN interview released on November 5, and warned that the lives of babies and the elderly are at risk.

«There is a humanitarian crisis in Cuba», said the prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, who called for urgent assistance to guarantee basic food and energy for the population, according to Diario de Cuba and CiberCuba.

«Unless we can address that humanitarian crisis, we are putting lives at risk», Mottley said in an interview with journalist Christiane Amanpour for CNN, released on November 5 and reported by CiberCuba. She argued that the first step is to make sure people have access to basic food and energy, ahead of the debate on political reform.

Mottley has led Caricom's mediation efforts between Washington and Havana since February 2026. At the bloc's summit held in July in Castries, Saint Lucia, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago formalised that offer of a diplomatic bridge, although the bloc did not reach a common political position on Cuba, according to CiberCuba.

She described the practical obstacles to delivering aid: she said an attempt to buy infant formula destined for Cuba was blocked four times by banks before the payment finally went through, according to the same outlet.

CiberCuba sets her words against United Nations figures on the island: the organisation requested 94.1 million dollars for a humanitarian response aimed at some 2 million people in 63 municipalities, and had received around 42 million by September. More than a third of Cuban households face persistent food insecurity, and 20,000 tonnes of donated food remained undistributed for lack of fuel.

The energy backdrop she refers to is a system that does not meet demand: on November 4 availability was 960 megawatts against demand of 2,850, according to the figures cited by CiberCuba.

Sources: Diario de Cuba · CiberCuba

Data updated: 2026-11-06T16:15:00.000Z

Barbados prime minister: «There is a humanitarian crisis in Cuba» | Yamacoa Observatory