CUBA has hit out the the United States for strengthening its crippling economic blockade during the Covid-19 pandemic, branding the policy genocidal and a violation of human rights.

“The opportunistic strengthening of the blockade under Covid-19 submits Cuban families to shortages, limitations and suffering,” Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla said on Thursday.

“US policy is genocidal, illegal, immoral, extraterritorial and is also a massive, flagrant and systematic violation of human rights.”

US President Joe Biden had promised to reverse some of the sanctions of his predecessor Donald Trump, who took a hard-line stance against the socialist island. Just weeks before the end of the Trump administration, secretary of state Mike Pompeo designated Cuba an international state sponsor of terrorism.

But hopes of a thaw in relations following Mr Biden’s election in January have largely been dashed. While announcing that Mr Biden was reviewing the terror designation, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last month that a major policy shift on Cuba was not among the president’s top priorities.

The US embargo on Cuba, which has been in place for six decades, is aimed at toppling the revolutionary government currently led by President Miguel Diaz-Canel.

It is costly not only to Cuba, which has cited overall losses of about $753 billion (£654bn), but to the US — which puts its own annual losses from the embargo at $1.2 billion (£870m).

Despite international condemnation, including opposition from the UN, Washington has maintained its blockade during the coronavirus pandemic. Cubans protested against the embargo with a massive car caravan last month, drawing international messages of solidarity.

Cuba has meanwhile been an example to the world in the fight against Covid-19, implementing a successful domestic strategy and developing its own vaccines while sending medical teams to support international relief efforts.