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Residents of the neighborhood Micro 2, in the Abel Santa María district of Santiago de Cuba, took to the streets to protest with pot-banging against power outages, according to a video shared by independent journalist Yosmany Mayeta Labrada on Facebook.
The immediate cause of the protest is not the rotating blackout of the national system, but a local breakdown: a broken transformer that has not been repaired by the authorities for more than ten days, leaving approximately five apartment buildings in the area without electricity.
“This is Micro 2 in Abel Santa María. A building that has been without power for more than ten days due to a broken transformer. And the people took to the streets to protest peacefully—children, young people,” recounted the person recording the video.
He reports that the neighbors shouted slogans of "we want electricity" and "down with repression."
"Tired, these buildings have been without electricity for more than ten days because a transformer broke and they don't have the means to fix it," he described.
The protest in Micro 2 is part of a series of mobilizations that continue in Santiago de Cuba. On May 30 and 31, there were protests in Micro 3 and El Salao, with tire burnings in Los Pinos and the presence of police and black berets on the streets, in what was described as one of the most tense weekends of the year.
Earlier, on May 14 and 18, protests were reported in the Reparto Portuondo and in the historic center of the city, and in March, clanging pots and pans rattled several neighborhoods, including Micro 9, where there were arrests.
On June 1st, an executive from the Electric Company of Santiago de Cuba publicly admitted that in many cases they could not guarantee even two hours of daily electrical service, a confession that further ignited citizen discontent.
The crisis is structural and affects the entire island. On June 1, the Electric Union reported an availability of just 1,160 MW against a demand of up to 3,100 MW, with a projected deficit of 1,940 MW.
The Cuban Observatory of Conflicts recorded 1,133 protests in April 2026, a 29.5% increase compared to the same month the previous year, of which 153 were directly related to the lack of electricity and water.
In May, Cuba recorded over 1,300 protests and complaints nationwide, with blackouts lasting between twenty and 24 hours daily in several provinces, according to Infobae.
The title of Mayeta Labrada's reel encapsulates the message that the residents of Micro 2 sent to the regime: "If you thought Santiago was asleep, you were mistaken."
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