CUBA — The United States announced new sanctions related to Cuba on Thursday, targeting the military-controlled conglomerate Grupo de Administracion Empresarial SA (GAESA), its executive president Ania Guillermina Lastres Morera, and the Moa Nickel SA (MNSA) joint venture. GAESA is a conglomerate controlled by the Cuban military with ties to nearly all segments of the Cuban economy.

MNSA is a joint venture between Toronto-based Sherritt International Corp and Cuba's state-owned nickel company. In a statement on its website, Sherritt said it had suspended its direct participation in joint venture activities in Cuba following the sanctions.

"We will continue to take action until the regime takes all necessary political and economic reforms," U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said.

Cuba's government condemned an earlier round of sanctions announced that week as unilateral coercive measures and collective punishment on the Cuban people. The Thursday measures came as part of a months-long pressure campaign against Cuba.

The United States has halted Venezuelan oil deliveries to the island, and President Trump issued an executive order creating a path to sanction any country that delivers fuel to Cuba, effectively imposing a blockade. Trump has also repeatedly threatened military action to topple the Cuban government.

Only one Russian oil tanker has reached Cuba in recent months. Fuel scarcity was preventing people from reaching hospitals and children from attending school in Cuba, and the country's health system is facing a backlog of more than 96,000 surgeries, including 11,000 for children.

Three United Nations special rapporteurs condemned the blockade as unlawful, saying it is disrupting daily life and undermining the enjoyment of a wide range of human rights. The rapporteurs decried Washington's fuel blockade as tantamount to energy starvation, which they defined as a condition in which the lack of fuel cripples the functioning of essential services required for a dignified life. "Energy starvation as a coercive tool is incompatible with international human rights norms," the three United Nations special rapporteurs said.