The uprising
“We’ve been bleeding for 62 years,” said Naples resident Yaisel Aguilar, who defected with her family from Cuba to Florida in 1994.
Protests began Sunday as thousands marched in the island’s largest cities Cienfuegos, capital Havana, Holguin, Matanzas, Santa Clara and Santiago voicing their frustrations with food and medicine shortages as well as the rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths.
It is considered the country’s biggest anti-government movement in the last 30 years.
In 1994, Cubans took to the streets of Havana during the Maleconazo uprising that late dictator Fidel Castro quashed. His answer to the protest was opening Cuba’s maritime borders resulting in a mass exodus.