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Óscar Camps in Cuba: “You can reach it, even under a blockade, and help”
🇵🇾 Paraguay /Good News

Óscar Camps in Cuba: “You can reach it, even under a blockade, and help”

From ABC Color · () Spanish

Translated from Spanish and summarized by DistantNews. Read the original for the full story.

At a glance

Newswire From a news agency Ongoing story
  • Open Arms delivered medical supplies, powdered milk and nearly three tonnes of hemodialysis equipment to the Juan Manuel Márquez pediatric hospital in Havana.
  • Director Óscar Camps said the group plans to return with more aid despite Cuba’s energy crisis and repeated blackouts.
  • A grandmother told EFE that an earlier Open Arms donation helped keep the hospital’s intensive care unit powered during emergency surgery on her two-year-old granddaughter.

“Even under a blockade,” it is possible to reach Cuba and help, Open Arms director Óscar Camps said in Havana after delivering a new shipment of aid to a children’s hospital.

Even under a blockade, it is possible to reach Cuba and help.

— Óscar CampsThe Open Arms director described the organization’s ability to deliver aid to Cuba despite the blockade.

The cargo, transported on the NGO’s sailboat Astral, included medical equipment, powdered milk and nearly three tonnes of supplies for hemodialysis. It also carried school materials and other basic necessities for the Juan Manuel Márquez hospital. Open Arms brought seven tonnes of humanitarian aid during its first arrival in July, including photovoltaic equipment, medical supplies and books.

Camps visited the hospital’s intensive care ward, which continues to operate with energy from the earlier donation. Among the children treated there is a two-year-old girl who underwent a 12-hour emergency operation after bile leaked into her abdomen. Her grandmother, Yaritza Corrales, said the surgery would have been impossible without the assistance provided by Open Arms and Spain.

What we hope with our actions is to make others feel ashamed: other organizations, other administrations, other governments.

— Óscar CampsCamps urged other institutions and governments to take similar humanitarian action.

“My girl came here on Saturday night with abdominal pain, and that Saturday, August 1, the national electric system collapsed. But thanks to the aid Spain provided, she could be operated on,” Corrales told EFE. The girl remains hospitalized more than a month after the operation but is recovering satisfactorily.

My girl came here on Saturday night with abdominal pain, and that Saturday, August 1, the national electric system collapsed. But thanks to the aid Spain provided, she could be operated on.

— Yaritza CorralesThe child’s grandmother described how donated power equipment helped enable emergency surgery.

Cuba began August with a partial blackout followed by two nationwide outages that left its 9.4 million residents without electricity for three consecutive days. The article links the increasingly frequent outages to a deep energy crisis, aggravated since January by what it describes as a U.S. oil blockade. Camps said Open Arms would return with another small shipment, adding that the organization wished it had more resources to do more.

We will have to return with another small shipment. I wish we were bigger and had more resources to contribute much more.

— Óscar CampsCamps said Open Arms planned to bring further assistance to Cuba.
About this summary

Originally published by ABC Color in Spanish. Translated, summarized, and contextualized automatically by DistantNews, with a note on how the source frames the story. Not individually reviewed before publishing. How this works.

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