Dozens of people, mostly elderly, were waiting this week outside a house in the Zamorana neighborhood, in Santiago de Cuba, to receive food distributed by opposition activists linked to UNPACU and the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance (ARC). The moment was recorded in a video shared by José Daniel Ferrer on his X account, as part of the so-called "Save Cuba Campaign."
In the images, the beneficiaries address the delivery workers with phrases that encapsulate the food insecurity experienced on the island: "Thank you all," "May the service continue," "Thank you for what you are doing for us," "Regards to José Daniel Ferrer," and "You are warriors."
The text accompanying the video leaves no room for ambiguity: "While tyranny starves the people and slanders us, we feed the most in need. Save Cuba Campaign in Zamorana, Santiago de Cuba."
The distribution point in Zamorana is managed by UNPACU activist Maikel Mediaceja Ramos, a political prisoner who served eight years in prison and was released in 2026. In mid-October, agents from the political police arrived before dawn at his home on B Street, between Madre Vieja and Zamorana, intending to arrest him. The solidarity of the neighbors thwarted the arrest: Mediaceja climbed onto the roof and escaped through the rooftops while declaring to the agents, "I am not doing anything wrong. I am just feeding the people who are hungry."
On that same day, around 300 people gathered at the site in search of food. Authorities threatened to intervene, claiming that the distribution lacked "legal authorization," an argument that Ferrer described as outrageous: "In a country where so many have nothing to eat, the repressive apparatus seeks to turn a plate of food into a matter of national security."
This humanitarian work has roots that go back over a decade. Ferrer started it from his own home in Altamira, and UNPACU reached to feed more than 1,200 people daily in Santiago de Cuba before the regime responded with police barricades, confiscations of food, pots, stoves, and refrigerators, and arrests of activists. Following the crackdown, the organization continued more discreetly at three locations in Santiago de Cuba and in Guantánamo, Bayamo, Holguín, and Havana, attending to over 800 people daily.
The new video arrives at a time of heightened tension for Ferrer, who, from his exile in Miami, coordinates support for these networks. On October 19, he participated in a forum at the UN convened by U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz, where he denounced torture and repression. Two days later, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla responded by labeling him a "convicted sanctioned" and "criminal." Ferrer, far from being intimidated, declared that if anyone could prove to him that his work is not worthwhile, he would return to Cuba "knowing that it could possibly be my end in the regime's prisons."
While the regime pursues those who distribute food and the foreign minister labels opponents as criminals, the elderly in Zamorana continue to wait in front of a door with a clear message: “Feeding the hungry is not a crime: it is a human duty. And no dictatorship will prevent us from fulfilling our duty as Christians.”
Filed under: