The protesters chanted “freedom” and called on President Miguel Diaz-Canel to step down in the biggest anti-government demonstrations in Cuba in decades.

The demonstrations come as the country reports a record surge in coronavirus infections, with people voicing anger over shortages of medicines and food, restrictions on civil liberties, and the government’s handling of the pandemic.

Blaming the United States for the unrest in a nationally televised speech on Sunday afternoon, Cuba’s President Miguel Diaz-Canel said: “We call on all revolutionaries of the country, all communists, to go out in the streets where these provocations happen and to confront them in a decisive, firm and courageous way.”

On Sunday, at least two spontaneous demonstrations emerged in San Antonio de Los Baños, near Havana, and Palma Soriano, in the province of Santiago de Cuba.

San Antonio residents reported that the police repressed protesters and detained several of the participants. (ILKHA)