Cubans are anxious, desperate and hoping for change as the US confronts Havana

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.Cubans contending with widespread blackouts and growing desperation increasingly hope that a U.S. pressure campaign will lead to change on the island, even as the Communist government projects defiance.Many see a chance for greater freedom and economic transformation, even as others vow to resist any American military intervention.

And all those stranded in the darkness without electricity amid an oil blockade imposed earlier this year by the Trump administration urgently want their light and water back.“It’s true that there’s a blockade against Cuba, but something good has to come out of all this,” said Iraida Ávila, who lives on the outskirts of Havana with her daughter, who has cystic fibrosis.As the U.S. signals it intends to raise the pressure on the Cuban government, some see an opportunity for more fundamental changes to the island’s moribund economy and its repressive political system.“We’re an island adrift,” said Yasser Sosa Tamayo, who runs a charity in Santiago de Cuba supplying food and medicine bought with contributions from abroad to more than 100 children and 400 adults.Yasser says his job is to find ways to feed the most vulnerable people in the city, including doctors and professionals now living on meager pensions.

He used to receive food from the Cuban community in the U.S. through local shipping companies, but those deliveries by truck stopped because of the fuel shortages.He recently published “Chronicles of a Shipwreck,” a book describing the broken and exhausted lives of Cubans based on his encounters on the streets of Santiago, on the southeastern tip of the island.