UNITED Nations human rights chief Volker Turk has urged the United States to immediately lift the tough sanctions it imposed on Cuba earlier this year, warning that they were causing widespread suffering and endangering lives.

While Cuba has been under a US blockade since 1962, President Donald Trump has drastically increased pressure in recent months, cutting off its fuel supplies and threatening to attack and take over the island.

In a statement on Monday, Mr Turk, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said: “The fuel restrictions imposed since early 2026 and recent tightening of extraterritorial sanctions, taken together, are directly harming Cubans, especially the most vulnerable.

“Children are dying because doctors lack access to essential medical supplies and medicines. This is unacceptable. These sanctions must be lifted immediately.”

Mr Turk said the oil blockade had left Cuba with daily blackouts often exceeding 20 hours.

He insisted that the additional sanctions imposed last month had added to the island’s misery.

“These measures, combined, are significantly affecting the population’s human rights,” Mr Turk said, adding that critical medical services were under severe strain, with essential medicines in “critical short supply.”

“Such severe sanctions packages that target entire sectors of an economy and produce broad, indiscriminate and harsh effects on populations are incompatible with basic principles of international human rights law,” he warned.