Hundreds in Cuba's second-largest city, Santiago, engaged in a rare public protest on Sunday, according to social media and official reports, decrying power outages and food shortages, prompting Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel to call for dialogue in an "atmosphere of tranquility and peace."
Protesters in Santiago took to the streets with chants of "power and food," according to videos posted on social media, as blackouts in places extended for 18 hours or more a day, jeopardizing frozen food and ratcheting up tensions on the island.
Cuba has fallen into a near-unprecedented economic crisis since the COVID-19 pandemic, with vast shortages of food, fuel and medicine stoking a record-breaking exodus that has seen upward of 400,000 people migrate to the United States.
"People were shouting 'food and electricity,'" a 65-year-old resident, who asked not to be identified, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) by phone from Santiago, 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the capital Havana.
Electricity was restored to the city later in the day, and "two truckloads of rice" were delivered, the resident said.
Social media platforms were filled with images of protests in Santiago de Cuba, a city of 510,000 people. There were also images of protests in another large city, Bayamo.
Diaz-Canel confirmed the Santiago protest on social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, shortly after the rally concluded.
"Several people have expressed their dissatisfaction with the situation of electrical service and food distribution," Diaz-Canel said.
"The disposition of the authorities of the Party, the State and the Government is to attend to the complaints of our people, listen, dialogue, explain the numerous efforts that are being carried out to improve the situation, always in an atmosphere of tranquility and peace."
Diaz-Canel also said "terrorists" from the United States were seeking to foment further uprisings.
"This context will be taken advantage of by the enemies of the Revolution, for destabilizing purposes," Diaz-Canel said on X.
Police had arrived in Santiago to "control the situation" and to "prevent violence," according to an account posted on social media by state-run CubaDebate.
It was not immediately clear whether anyone had been arrested during the protest.
Beatriz Johnson, a Santiago Communist Party official, said protesters in the eastern Cuban city had been "respectful" and had listened "attentively" to the government's explanations of food and electricity shortages.
Videos on social media suggest the rally was peaceful.
One person, who spoke to The Associated Press (AP) in a phone call from Santiago on condition their name not be used, said internet service in the area was shut off after the demonstrations. Several users on X also reported internet outages.
In recent years, the internet has become an important tool in Cuba to facilitate and distribute news of protests against the government, but it has also been used to spread false information about supposed protests.
It was most notably used during mass demonstrations in 2021 that saw the arrests of some demonstrators and mass internet outages. Those protests were also triggered by power and food shortages.
The U.S. embassy in Havana on Sunday said it was monitoring the protests in Santiago and elsewhere.
"We are aware of reports of peaceful protests in Santiago, Bayamo, Granma and elsewhere in Cuba," the embassy said on X.
"We urge the Cuban government to respect the human rights of the protesters and attend to the legitimate needs of the Cuban people."
Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez blasted the U.S. Embassy comments late on Sunday, blaming Cuba's "acute economic situation" on the long-standing U.S. trade embargo and sanctions.
"The US Government, especially its embassy in #Cuba, must refrain from interfering in the country's internal affairs and inciting social disorder," Rodriguez said on X.
Cuba is facing one of the worst economic and energy crises in its history. Waves of blackouts have grown worse in recent weeks, adding to frustrations over food shortages and inflation that have made it increasingly difficult to make ends meet on the communist-governed island.
Protests on the island are exceedingly rare but have cropped up more often in recent years as economic crisis rocks the country.
"Everything is expensive and wages are low," said a 28-year-old beautician living in Santiago, who asked to remain anonymous.
Local archbishop Dionisio Garcia said: "Let's hope that solutions emerge." He said by phone the situation in the city "was very difficult" due to the blackouts.
Although Cuba's 2019 constitution grants citizens the right to protest, a law more specifically defining that right is stalled in the legislature, leaving those who take to the street in legal limbo.
Rights groups, the European Union, and the United States have critiqued Cuba's response to anti-government protests more than two years earlier on July 11, 2021 – the largest since Fidel Castro's 1959 revolution – as heavy-handed and repressive.
Cuba's government said those jailed were guilty of assault, vandalism and sedition.
