Cuba’s Ambassador to Saint Lucia, Yenielys Vilma Regueiferos Linares, said she is aware of the challenges faced by Saint Lucian students in Cuba following this week’s catastrophic hurricane. She also noted that, despite the country’s economic strain, Cuba intends to maintain its aid efforts in the region.
Hurricane Melissa made landfall in Cuba on October 26 as a Category 3 storm, causing extensive damage, widespread blackouts, and forcing the evacuation of about 730 000 people.
Linares explained that, before the hurricane, Saint Lucian parents with children studying in Cuba had reached out expressing concern. She said she assured them that Cuba’s civil defence authorities were taking all possible measures to safeguard civilians.
However, power outages following the storm caused some alarm. “Today, some parents called me and said there is a terrible blackout, students do not have anywhere to cook,” Linares told St. Lucia Times on October 27. “I had to explain to the parents that we are in the recovery process of the hurricane, that the same is happening in the entire province and in other provinces in the eastern part of the country.”
Ambassador Linares said she believes recovery would have been easier if not for the longstanding economic embargo imposed on Cuba by the US. “It would be easier to recover if we wouldn’t be in this situation of the blockade,” Linares said.
While expressing solidarity with Jamaica, which was struck by Hurricane Melissa as a Category 5 storm that caused significant destruction in parts of the island, she added that the hurricane has compounded Cuba’s economic difficulties, as trade activity has declined and growth has stalled due to the decades-old embargo, which has limited foreign investment and financial relations.
Linares also said economic restrictions have worsened under the current US administration. “Since January, when President Trump entered into the United States government, the measures have been reinforced.”
Meanwhile, US officials, like US Deputy Ambassador to the UN Jeff Bartos, have argued that Cuba’s economic troubles are self-inflicted, saying countries supporting an end to the embargo “give [Cuba] the excuse… to wash its hands of any culpability for its financial crisis and continue to play the blame game instead of implementing meaningful reforms.”
Cuban officials maintain that the country remains committed to strengthening diplomatic relations worldwide. In Saint Lucia, Cuba intends to continue focusing on medical and sports programmes.
“For years, we have been cooperating in the health sector in Saint Lucia and we have excellent relations in all the health institutions here,” said Norberto Ramos González, Director of Cuba’s Medical Brigade in Saint Lucia.
González noted that the embargo has affected all sectors in Cuba, including healthcare. “We do not have access to medical appliances, to medicine and to raw material to produce medicine,” he said.
However, Ambassador Linares added: “If we have been able to do all this — to have such great development in sports, in education, in health, in culture — with a blockade, imagine a Cuba without the blockade.”
According to the ambassador, Cuba intends to continue offering educational opportunities to countries around the world and to maintain its medical brigades operating in more than 56 countries.
