Santiago de Cuba

Santiago de Cuba, Cuba's second largest city and capital of its Eastern Province of the same name, was among the eight provinces identified by the UN Resident Coordinator in April 2026 as having acute and persistent humanitarian needs. The city sits at the centre of Cuba's eastern Energy infrastructure, with the CTE Antonio Maceo thermoelectric plant — units of which were simultaneously out of service in April 2026 — contributing to blackouts forecast at 1,732 MW at the evening peak.

Santiago de Cuba has a population of approximately 430,000 and is Cuba's primary eastern port city. It is the site of the Moncada Barracks (site of the 1953 attack that launched the Castro revolution), the birthplace of Fidel Castro, and home to the Carnaval de Santiago, one of Latin America's largest festivals. The CTE Antonio Maceo plant is one of the ageing Soviet-era thermoelectric facilities that form the backbone of Cuba's generation capacity.

The city's proximity to Haiti and Jamaica makes it a departure point for irregular maritime migration. Combined with the province's structural economic underdevelopment relative to Havana, Santiago de Cuba's humanitarian situation in 2026 reflects both national energy crisis conditions and longer-standing regional inequalities.