A caption in the video states plainly: "Today we fed 1,023 people in the Zamorana community of Santiago de Cuba." The image corresponds to the Save Cuba campaign led by José Daniel Ferrer, shared this Friday, where elderly individuals and vulnerable people receive food, vitamins, and medications while the political police keep a watchful eye on the organizers.
The distribution point is managed by Maikel Mediaceja Ramos, an activist of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU) and a former political prisoner who served eight years and seven months in prison before being released in April 2026. From his home on B Street, between Madre Vieja and Zamorana, Mediaceja, his family, neighbors, and collaborators work uninterrupted ten-hour shifts, from Monday to Friday, to prepare and serve meals to hundreds of people who come to his door.
The words of the beneficiaries depict a reality that the regime prefers to hide.
"We are starving in this city, and we shouldn't have to be going through this at this point," says one of them in front of the camera.
Another woman, upon receiving her plate, confesses: "I have nothing for dinner at home. Thank you very much."
An elderly woman goes further and directly tells the organizers, "Count on me for anything."
The project does not operate in calm conditions. As Ferrer states in the video, "the political police threaten us every day," and the neighbors have declared that they will defend the initiative "because to a large extent their health and even their lives depend on this necessary project." In mid-October, agents arrived before dawn at Mediaceja's home with the intention of detaining him. The solidarity of the neighbors thwarted the arrest, and the activist escaped across the rooftops, telling the agents: "I am not doing anything wrong. I am just feeding people who are hungry."
The authorities then threatened to intervene in the distribution, citing a lack of "legal authorization" to distribute food. That day, about 300 people had gathered at the site.
In addition to food, this Friday the Zamorana team distributed vitamins, pain relievers, and other medications amid the health crisis affecting the island. The project is sustained thanks to the financial support of Cubans living in the United States, although the costs are high: "It has cost me quite a bit of money because here all this meat, the noodles, the charcoal, the firewood, everything has to be paid for," declares José Daniel Ferrer.
The backdrop is a food crisis that the provincial authorities themselves have acknowledged: according to government figures, more than 10% of the population of Santiago de Cuba is classified as vulnerable, which amounts to 101,359 people. On a national scale, this figure exceeded 883,000 in October 2026. According to the Food Monitor Program, 33.9% of Cuban households had at least one person who went to bed hungry in September 2026, and among those over 60 years old, 55.6% reported having completely lost access to food.
Last week, the elderly from Zamorana had publicly thanked the opposition members in another video shared by Ferrer, with phrases like "Thank you" and "You are warriors."
Ferrer, who spent over 12 years in Cuban prisons and was exiled to Miami in October 2025, coordinates these networks from outside the island. The chancellor Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla labeled him a "convicted felon" and "criminal" on October 21, just days after Ferrer reported on torture and inhumane conditions in Cuban prisons at a UN forum presided over by U.S. Ambassador Mike Waltz.
In response to those disparagements, Ferrer stated that if someone could prove to him that his work is not worthwhile, he would return to Cuba "knowing that it may very well be my end in the regime's prisons."
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