Cuban Families Plead for News from Isla de la Juventud Amid Communication Blackout

For several days, Cubans living abroad have been unable to reach their loved ones in Isla de la Juventud. Since Monday, September 8, mobile phone services have been down due to damage to the connections linking the island with the national telecommunications network.

Geida Ponciano, a woman desperate for news, shared an emotional video on Facebook which has garnered over 4,500 views. In the video, she tearfully expressed her distress over the lack of updates from her mother since Monday.

"Those of us on this side are suffering. We can't speak to our families. In my case, it's my mother. Please, anyone who has their mother alive, try to understand me," Ponciano pleaded in her video.

She also highlighted the cruel irony: those outside the island cannot guide their family members on how to connect because that information must come from within.

"We cannot relay how they might connect—whether through a VPN or a paid antenna. I don't know how to do it. That information needs to come through, please, be humane," she urged.

Another video by Frank García Martínez captured the human toll of the crisis: "Four days of silence mean four days of anguish for thousands. We are not asking for privilege. We are asking for something basic. To communicate with our family."

The pain echoed through the comments on these posts. One user wrote: "Today marks five days since Monday without knowing about my kids and my mom. My heart is crushed."

Another added: "I can't take this anymore, not knowing about my loved ones, if they have food or water. This is too hard for those of us far away." A third comment directly criticized the regime: "It's sad, I haven't spoken to my mom in days. And nobody cares. Cuba is falling apart, and those who treat it like a personal farm don't care. We're in a country where everything is wrong. Until when."

Some users noted that those appearing online from the island were actually outside the territory, possibly in Havana, explaining why no information flowed from within.

One user mentioned contacting a man with internet access who deals with remittances as the only alternative communication route.

ETECSA acknowledged days ago that repairs are being carried out under "complex conditions" involving undersea cables, with specialists from the company and Geocuba involved, yet no estimated restoration date or specific cause of the damage has been provided. Landline services have also been partially affected, restricted to local calls.

The communication breakdown doesn't exist in isolation. The Isla de la Juventud has been grappling with a severe power crisis that worsened throughout 2026: power outages increased from four hours daily in February to 18 hours in May and up to 22 hours in July.

On August 18, the territory was nearly without electricity, with power reserved only for the hospital and water pumping. ETECSA admitted its network cannot sustain more than 24 hours without electrical supply, making extended blackouts a direct threat to telecommunications.

The September outage adds to a series of accumulated failures: SMS disruptions that downed Transfermóvil on September 2, a fiber optic cut affecting Nauta payments on August 17, and a national mobile phone outage due to a generator failure on August 3.