New York, 12 February 2020. The impact of the blockade is not a Cuba´s fabrication. It causes inestimable humanitarian damage; it is a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of human rights of the Cuban people, including our children´s and teenagers´. (…) The damage accrued by nearly six decades of blockade exceeds 922 billion dollars. This was strongly expressed by Ambassador Oscar León González, Chargé d´Affairs, a.i. of the Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations, during the first regular session of the UNICEF Executive Board and the adoption of the Country Programme for Cuba.
The Representative of the island categorically rejected the statements by the US delegation against Cuba during the session and reminded them that the damage to the public health alone due to the blockade, since it was imposed in 1962, amounts to 3 billion dollars. He additionally stated that only from April 2018 to March 2019, the damage to the health sector in Cuba amounted to 104 million dollars, 6 million more than the previous year.
He expressed that the United States of America, which is not party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, affects cooperation between Cuba and UNICEF with its blockade policy, limiting the purchase of supplies for children and teenagers in the context of the 2014-2019 Country Programme, as stated by the agency.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations