Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel has said that his government is willing to engage with protesters after hundreds of Cubans partook in rare public protests at the weekend to decry worsening conditions on the island.
Demonstrators took to the streets in at least four cities on Sunday to complain about hours-long power cuts and increasing food scarcity. There were also calls for political freedoms, with chants of “Patria y Vida,” which means fatherland and life in Spanish, a reference to the popular anti-government anthem.
Hundreds of people protested in Santiago de Cuba, known as the birthplace of Fidel Castro’s revolution, while the local secretary of the country’s Communist Party tried to address the crowd from a rooftop.
Diaz-Canel said in a statement Monday that his government was ready “to attend to the complaints of our people, listen, dialogue, explain the many efforts that are being carried out to improve the situation.”
Cuba is in an economic crisis as surging inflation has massively devalued the Cuban peso, with many state salaries now worth less than the cost of a carton of eggs. The government in March raised the price of fuel by more than 500%, further devastating Cubans’ pocketbooks.