Sleep or play dominoes. Cubans wait days in front of empty gas stations | outside

Some motorists sleep in their cars waiting for the tanks of petrol that we hope to retrieve. The Cuban website “Cubanoticias360” reports that others play dominoes along the way to pass the time.

“We’ve been waiting here for three days, and nobody tells us anything,” one Cuban told La Prensa Latina, a Hispano-English website featuring Latin American news. Scarcity affects not only the classic American cars of the 1950s, which now serve as taxis, but also the public transit system.

The Cuban regime did not provide an official explanation for the fuel shortage. The Cuban dictatorship, once set up by the bearded revolutionary Fidel Castro, is by definition not generous in providing news to its population.

At the beginning of last month, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel, who has succeeded Raul Castro since 2018, was still talking with the Russian oil company Rosneft. Because of the US embargo imposed on the island more than sixty years ago, Cuba has long been dependent on Russia and Venezuela for oil supplies.

The Cuban electrical system also suffers from regular blackouts. For many, the economic situation is so serious that countless citizens are moving abroad. Last year, more than 300,000 Cubans tried to reach the United States via Mexico.

Oddly enough, they ran out of fuel right after the election, one of the waiting drivers told Cubanoticias360. Elections are a big word: for parliament, citizens were only allowed to vote for pre-approved candidates from the country’s party. “Obviously or on purpose, you name it.”