Cuban University Students Protest as Energy Crisis Disrupts Education

College students at Havana University held a spontaneous protest Monday over how Cuba's severe energy shortage is forcing class cancellations and online learning. The crisis has worsened due to U.S. sanctions that have cut off oil supplies to the island nation.

A spontaneous demonstration unfolded Monday on the campus steps of Havana University, where a small gathering of college students voiced frustration over how Cuba’s severe power shortage is disrupting their academic experience amid ongoing U.S. sanctions that have worsened the island’s energy supply problems.

Frequent electrical blackouts and transportation breakdowns have compelled the university to cancel numerous in-person classes or move them to virtual formats, though many students face additional challenges with Cuba’s sluggish and unreliable internet service.

“We aren’t martyrs for any side; we are university students. So, none of us intended to be here, but there has been no other way,” said one of protesters, who didn’t want to be identified by name due to fear of government reprisals.

First Deputy Minister of Higher Education Modesto Ricardo Gómez came outside to address the demonstrating students. He recognized the budget constraints impacting Cuba’s higher education system and blamed the current tensions with the Trump administration for making conditions worse.

“Today we have been tremendously affected by the criminal and genocidal blockade of the United States government, which, without a thought for the people or our youth, is truly massacring an entire society,” Gomez said.

Throughout Havana’s primary thoroughfares Monday, residents were forced to travel on foot to reach their jobs or complete errands. Fuel distribution is limited to 20 liters per vehicle, and obtaining gasoline requires a complex scheduling system that can stretch for weeks.

At a weekend gathering in Florida with conservative leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean, President Donald Trump indicated the U.S. would focus on Cuba following the conflict with Iran and hinted his administration might negotiate an agreement with Havana, highlighting Washington’s increasingly confrontational approach toward the island’s communist government.

“Great change will soon be coming to Cuba,” Trump said at the summit.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Saturday described the summit as “small, reactionary and neocolonial.”

Trump also said there are high-level talks happening between Cuba and the U.S. government.

The Cuban government hasn’t confirmed that meetings are happening.

The Florida conference, which the White House termed the “Shield of the Americas” summit, occurred just two months after Trump authorized a bold U.S. military mission to apprehend Venezuela’s former president, Nicolás Maduro, which ended Venezuela’s petroleum exports to Cuba.

After Maduro’s capture, Trump issued an executive directive imposing tariffs on imports from nations that sell or supply oil to Cuba, a decision that further devastated the island already facing a worsening energy shortage.

Since that time, Cuba has received no oil deliveries, despite producing only one-third of its domestic energy requirements.