Mexico To Send Navy Ships With Food And Medicine To Cuba

Mexico will send two navy ships with food and medical supplies to Cuba, the foreign ministry said on Thursday.

The ships, which will leave the port of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico on Sunday, are Mexico’s humanitarian move to aid the Cuban people who are facing the worst political crackdown in decades.

The ships will be taking syringes, oxygen tanks and masks as well as powdered milk, cans of tuna, beans, flour, cooking oil and gasoline.

The Foreign Relations Department said in a statement that the aid “is in line with the Mexican government's policy of international solidarity.”

The department also said it will keep offering humanitarian aid to help Latin American and Caribbean countries tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

Also on Thursday, President Joe Biden authorized new U.S. sanctions against Cuban officials responsible for the oppression of peaceful protestors.

Among the imposed sanctions, the White House committed to expediting any request to export humanitarian or medical supplies to Cuba's people and urged international partners to do the same.

Cuban police have arrested around 500 of the millions of demonstrators and activists who took their concerns to the streets on July 11 to protest against their restricted access to food, medicine and COVID-19 vaccines.

The Cuban government has blamed the protests mostly on what it calls U.S.-financed “counter-revolutionaries” exploiting economic hardship caused by a decades-old U.S. embargo, ABC News reported.

Latin American governments have split along ideological lines over the protests in Cuba