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'Situation is terrible' - Protesters rally outside US embassy in Madrid to demand end to Cuba blockade

"Demonstrators rallied outside the US Embassy in Madrid on Thursday, calling for an end to sanctions on Cuba and urging Washington to allow fuel shipments to reach the island as it grapples with a deepening energy crisis. Footage shows participants carrying banners reading, '64 years of blockade against Cuba: making it suffer in order to force it to surrender' and 'Oil for Cuba', and chanting, 'Cuba is not alone'. ​"The situation is terrible. It is a situation of harassment. What the United States intends to do is to starve, cause despair, and bring anguish to the Cuban people into submission, people who are resisting very difficult situations," said ​Nines Maestro, former member of the Spanish Congress of Deputies. Reinaldo Castillo, a Cuban resident, recognised that Cuba is living through the most difficult period. "We are experiencing three- and four-day blackouts. Food cannot be preserved, and food spoils. Hospitals have been affected. The life expectancy of newborn children has been impacted because there is no electricity in hospitals," he shared. Castillo blamed fuel shortages for the blackouts and called on the international community to oppose a 'cruel blockade'. Participant Susanne remarked that the sanctions restricted Cuba's access to medicines, food and international commerce. "It has prevented Cuba from having economic relations with certain companies and entities, leaving Cuba with access to almost nothing, neither medicines nor food, and preventing us from supplying ourselves through our own means or other relationships," she insisted. "The European Union must not be complicit. You defend democracy and human rights. This must stop because the ones suffering are the Cuban people," she stressed, adding that she is Cuban and knows "what it's like to live under the blockade." The event was formally organised by the Movement of Solidarity with the Cuban Revolution in Madrid. This follows decades of tensions between the United States and Cuba, recently marked by tighter sanctions and the blockade promoted by the Trump administration against fuel shipments to the island under threat of sanctions – a measure that caused a deepening energy crisis."