Spanish NGO Delivers Medical Supplies, Food and Other Essential Goods to Havana Hospitals.

On Sunday, the Astral sailboat, operated by the Spanish NGO Open Arms, arrived in Havana with 7 tons of humanitarian aid, just over a month after its first trip to Cuba.

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The vessel departed Saturday from Cancun, Mexico, carrying medical supplies, powdered milk, equipment and supplies for hemodialysis, school materials and other essential goods.

The donations will be unloaded Monday and delivered Wednesday to the Abelardo Buch Lopez Institute of Nephrology and the Juan Manuel Marquez University Pediatric Hospital.

The Astral first arrived in Havana on July 19 as part of the “Heading to Cuba” mission. The sailboat had departed from Barcelona on May 14 and became the humanitarian first vessel to cross the Atlantic to the island carrying 7 tons of aid, traveling 6,200 miles.

The donation, valued at 160,000 euros and supported by more than 4,000 donors, included photovoltaic equipment, medical supplies, and an ultrasound machine for the Juan Manuel Marquez Pediatric Hospital, which is receiving aid again on this occasion.

This’s Cuba right now under total blackout after seven months of fuel blockade—Doctors are manually operating ventilators in order to keep babies alive.

The United States is now blocking 7,000+ containers of medicine, food, and resources for water and energy from reaching Cuba.… pic.twitter.com/wBsJSYRWGE

— Mohamad Safa (@mhdksafa) August 14, 2026

“When we arrived in July, we saw firsthand what was happening in the hospitals and, above all, what was missing. We could have ended the mission and gone home, but when you know exactly what they need and that you can do something, you can no longer say you didn’t know. That’s why we came back,” Open Arms founder Oscar Camps said.

The NGO Open Arms was founded in 2015 during the height of the refugee crisis in the Mediterranean Sea and has since saved more than 70,000 lives. With its trip to Cuba, Open Arms has sought to deliver aid while also highlighting the humanitarian impact of the U.S. blockade against the island.

As the boat docked at the Havana Port Cruise Terminal, Lazaro Jubel could not stop looking at the Astral from a distance. “It deserves credit for having left Cancun in that sailboat. Those waters are nothing but seasickness. But we certainly need the aid,” he said.

teleSUR/ JF

Sources: EFE – Open Arms

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