A suspected thief narrowly escapes lynching at the hands of young people in Santiago de Cuba.

A suspected thief narrowly escaped being lynched by a group of young people who detained and beat him in Santiago de Cuba, supposedly after committing a robbery of a cell phone.

The events took place this Friday in the Vista Alegre neighborhood of that city. According to reports from neighbors sent to the independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, the young man who was attacked escaped major harm after being beaten by other young people riding scooters.

At the shout of "thief and swindler," the motorcyclists attacked the alleged criminal and stripped him of his clothes. A video sent to the independent journalist showed one of the attackers with a rock in his hand, and the detainee bleeding from an open wound on his head.

Later, the alleged 'culprit' was able to escape, running down the street in his underwear, while another young man tried to catch up behind him. The rest told him to leave everything there," Mayeta Labrada stated on her social media, condemning the use of violence as a form of "justice" and advocating for seeking the intervention of authorities in cases like this.

The scenes of neighbors and citizens catching thieves and deciding to take justice into their own hands are becoming common in Cuba, a country where crime rates continue to rise as the socio-economic crisis deepens, impoverishing the population to unprecedented levels.

Sometimes, the discomfort caused by the capture of alleged thieves caught in the act exacerbates the indignation of the neighbors, who, driven by anger, may end up inflicting serious injuries on the detainees. However, most of the time, the scenes end with the alleged thief tied up until the arrival of the police.

That's what happened in mid-April with a young thief who was caught in the act inside a house in the Mantilla neighborhood, while trying to steal the belongings of its residents. The neighbors tied him up to prevent him from escaping while they waited for the police to arrive.

Days before, in Santiago de Cuba, a group of neighbors tied up a thief who allegedly snatched a cell phone in the middle of the street. Images shared on social media showed the young man's state of anxiety, as well as what appeared to be a blow received in one of his eyes, which was seen closed.

At the end of April, a man who was almost lynched by neighbors in Santiago de Cuba, who mistook him for a thief, offered his version of the events through social media, declaring himself innocent and attributing what happened to a misunderstanding.

"I am a worker, it was a misunderstanding," said Ramón Moya Ramírez, who became the target of public outrage due to an incident that the crowd interpreted as a theft. As a result, neighbors captured him, tied him to a pole, and subjected him to a violent treatment.