Neighbors from the Urban Center José Martí in Santiago de Cuba, near the Multi-Purpose Hall, took to the streets to protest this Thursday, demanding electricity, food, and freedom, in a new display of the desperation caused by the energy crisis in the country's second largest city.
In the videos, published on Facebook by user Yurisleidis Remedios, a group of people can be heard chanting slogans.
A female voice identifies the location and clearly summarizes the demands: "We want electricity, here at the Polivalente stop, freedom for the people of Cuba, we want change, food for our children, down with the dictatorship down."
Among the shouts, one can also hear "Freedom! Freedom! Freedom!" and apparently, it also denounces the presence of repressive forces: "The albirros have arrived!"
This protest is the most recent episode in a series of mobilizations that have shaken Santiago de Cuba since March 2026.
On June 5th, residents of Micro 2 staged protests with pots and pans after more than ten days without electricity due to a damaged transformer.
Before, between May 30 and 31, there were protests with pots and pans in Micro 3 and El Salao, tire burning in Los Pinos, and the presence of "black berets" in the city.
On May 18, protests were reported in broad daylight in the historic center of Santiago, at the intersection of San Pedro and Martí, near Parque Céspedes.
And on March 15, the José Martí District itself was the scene of protests in Micro 9 with slogans of "Down with the dictatorship!" and the burning of garbage bins.
The trigger is an extremely severe electrical crisis. According to data from the Electric Union this Friday, the system's availability was only 980 MW compared to a demand of 2,500 MW, with 1,522 MW impacted. On Thursday, the maximum impact reached 2,080 MW at eight in the evening.
In Santiago de Cuba, the situation is particularly critical: a director of the local Electric Company admitted on June 1 that, in many cases, they could not guarantee even two hours of electrical service a day.
The slogans from this Thursday night—combining demands for services, food, and political issues—follow the pattern observed in other recent mobilizations, where the energy crisis acts as a trigger but the demands quickly escalate to political matters.
At the national level, the Cuban Conflict Observatory recorded 1,311 protests in May across the country, and 1,245 in March, showing a sustained upward trend that reflects the exhaustion of the population after 67 years of dictatorship and a collapsing economy.
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