Cubans Burn Charcoal in 18-Story Towers as Energy Crisis Forces Wood Fires

1 articles · Updated · The New York Times · May 25

Santiago de Cuba residents are cooking in their apartments with charcoal, wood and even plastic kindling as electricity and fuel shortages leave families unable to prepare food normally.
Yusimi Castellano, 58, boiled spaghetti over a squat iron stove on her 18th-floor apartment, saying her asthma has worsened from the smoke but she has no alternative.
The practice has spread across a complex of five 18-story buildings with 120 apartments each, where improvised indoor stoves have replaced the basic services those towers were built to symbolize.
Some households now cannot afford charcoal either and are chopping firewood, underscoring how Cuba's severe energy crisis is pushing urban residents toward increasingly precarious survival measures.

How much is Cuba's state-run economy to blame for the energy crisis, independent of the longstanding U.S. sanctions?

Can renewable energy and foreign investment save Cuba from its collapsing infrastructure and deepening humanitarian crisis?

Is the U.S. fuel blockade a legitimate policy tool or a violation of international law causing 'energy starvation'?