Sawt Falasteen - First international aid convoy arrives in crisis-hit Cuba

A delegation of around 100 European activists arrived overnight at Havana airport with the aid, which will be distributed to hospitals, the sources said.

Cuba has been mired in an economic crisis exacerbated by the sudden suspension of oil supplies from Venezuela in January after the United States ousted president Nicolas Maduro, a Cuba ally.

The island nation of 9.6 million was already battling the effects of the US fuel blockade against the island.

The aid activists from several European and Latin American countries as well as Turkey belong to the Nuestra America ("Our America") flotilla who are out to show their solidarity with the Cuban people.

All told, humanitarian organizations and public figures plan to deliver 20 tons of aid to the island by air and sea to help Cuba through its worst economic crisis in three decades exacerbated by the US capture of Maduro and the cut-off in oil shipments from Venezuela.

US President Donald Trump has threatened retaliation against any country sending oil to the Caribbean island.

Official Cuban media said another convoy was leaving Chile on Wednesday with "medicines, supplies and food to help Cuba cope with the tightening of the energy blockade imposed by the United States."

Additionally, a group of 140 people -- including doctors, lawyers, labor leaders and activists -- will be flying from Miami, Florida, to Havana on Friday to deliver 2.8 tons of medical supplies to clinics and hospitals, according to the pacifist group CODEPINK, one of the operation's organizers.

A flotilla from Mexico is also expected to reach Havana by the end of the week.

Separately, leftist activists are also planning to hold a solidarity event along the Havana waterfront.

Among expected attendees are Pablo Iglesias, a former Spanish politician and founder of the left-wing party Podemos, Irish punk-rap group Kneecap, Brazilian climate activist Thiago Avila and leftist British Parliamentarian Jeremy Corbyn, according to a statement by organizers.

In their statement, organizers quoted Corbyn as saying that the United States had blockaded Cuba for six decades and "now the Donald Trump administration is intensifying" it.

Corbyn insisted that a majority of people around the world sided with the Cuban people.

Iglesias said that "to defend the Cuban people is to defend sovereignty and freedom against the criminal logic of the blockade" imposed by Washington.

W.Mansour--SF-PST