The request for the lifting of the U.S. blockade against Cuba continued on Tuesday, in many of the speeches of prime and foreign ministers at the UN General Assembly. 

After four days of sessions, and two still ahead, the need to end the blockade has been mentioned by 30 countries. 

The issue was widely presented on Monday by Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who recalled that the blockade has been the target of 18 resolutions of the General Assembly with the almost unanimous support of the member countries demanding its removal. 

On Monday, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Baldwin Spencer, described the blockade against Cuba as unfair, counterproductive and as a reprehensible act of unjustifiable economic strangulation. 

Soon after, the President of Vanuatu and president of the Forum of the Pacific Islands, Edward Nipake Natapei, also condemned the blockade, while Prime Minister of Grenada Thomas Till called it an outrage. 

For his part, Foreign Minister of Nicaragua Samuel Santos joined the international condemnation and also demanded the release of the five Cuban antiterrorists imprisoned in the U.S. since 1998. 

Vice president of Ecuador Lenin Moreno said that the blockade is the most infamous, illegal and illegitimate in living memory. 

Foreign ministers of the Solomon Islands,Peter Shanel Agovaka, and Gambia, Mamadou Tangara, and the special envoy of Zambian President and Defense Minister Kalombo Mwansa also joint the condemnation to the US blockade against Cuba, as did the Prime Minister of Lesotho, Pakalitha Mosisili. 

Foreign Minister of Algeria Mourad Medelci called for an end to the economic, trade and financial blockade erected against Cuba, its government and people for more than half a century.

In previous days, delegations of Brazil, Malawi, African Union, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Haiti, Namibia, Laos, St. Lucia, Dominica, East Timor, Suriname, South Africa and Spain also condemned US blockade. 

On October 26, the General Assembly will vote, for the 19th consecutive year, on a resolution to condemn the U.S. blockade against Cuba.
 
Last year, 187 countries voted against the U.S. measure, the highest recorded vote since 1991, with only three votes against (United States, Israel and Palau) and two abstentions (Marshall Islands and Micronesia).