By Dave Sherwood
HAVANA, May 13 (Reuters) - Protests broke out across the Cuban capital of Havana on Wednesday evening as the city confronted its worst rolling blackouts in decades amid a U.S. blockade that has starved the island of fuel.
Crowds of hundreds of angry Cubans poured onto the streets in several outlying neighborhoods, blocking roads with burning piles of rubbish, banging pots and shouting "Turn on the lights!" and "The people, united, will never be defeated!"
Reuters witnessed multiple groups of mostly peaceful protesters in locations across the city, marking the largest single night of demonstrations in Havana since the energy crisis took hold in January.
Cuba's energy and mines minister earlier in the day said the nation had completely run out of diesel and fuel oil, and that its power grid had entered a "critical" state.
"We have absolutely no fuel (oil), and absolutely no diesel," Energy Minister Vicente de la O said on state-run media. "We have no reserves."
Blackouts have increased dramatically this week, with many districts of Havana without light for 20 to 22 hours a day, the minister said, heightening tensions in a city already exhausted by food, fuel and medicine shortages.
The national grid, he said, was operating entirely on domestic crude oil, natural gas and renewable energy.
Cuba has installed 1,300 megawatts of solar power over the past two years, but much of that capacity is lost to grid instability amid the fuel shortages, de la O said, reducing efficiency and output.
PLEAS FOR FUEL
The country's top energy official said Cuba continued negotiations to import fuel despite the blockade, but said rising global oil and transportation prices as a result of the U.S.-Israeli war with Iran were further complicating that effort.
"Cuba is open to anyone that wants to sell us fuel," the minister said.
Neither Mexico nor Venezuela, once top suppliers of oil to Cuba, have sent fuel to the island since Trump's January 2026 executive order threatening tariffs on any country shipping fuel to the communist-run nation.
Only a single large oil tanker, the Russian-flagged Anatoly Kolodkin, has delivered crude oil to Cuba since December, providing temporary relief to the island in April.
The renewed power cuts in Havana and beyond come as the U.S. blockade on fuel imports to Cuba enters its fourth month, crippling public services across the Caribbean island of nearly 10 million people.
The United Nations last week called Trump's fuel blockade unlawful, saying it had obstructed the "Cuban people’s right to development while undermining their rights to food, education, health, and water and sanitation."
(Reporting by Dave Sherwood; Editing by Jacqueline Wong, Sonali Paul and Kate Mayberry)
