HAVANA: The first boat of a flotilla carrying medical supplies, food and solar panels reached Cuba on Tuesday to aid the island as a US fuel blockade deepens its energy crisis. The Maguro shrimp fishing boat docked in Havana three days later than hoped after battling strong winds, currents and a pesky battery during its journey from Mexico.
As they approached Havana’s colonial-era fortification, the international activists stood on the cabin roof of the boat — symbolically renamed “Granma 2.0” as a tribute to the yacht used by Fidel Castro’s guerrilla fighters to launch their revolution in 1956.
They held a sign reading “Let Cuba live” while others waiting for them on the dock chanted “Cuba yes! Blockade no!” “I wish everyone would unite, even Cubans abroad, and come and do the same because it is the people who are suffering,” said Amado Rodriguez, a 59-year-old driver walking near Havana Bay. The first shipments arrived by plane from Europe, Latin America and the United States last week as part of an air and sea mission, dubbed Our America Convoy, to bring some 50 tonnes of aid to Cuba.
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