The Cuban government has summoned the US ambassador, Benjamin Ziff, to its foreign ministry, accusing Washington of stoking a protest which saw hundreds of people take to the streets in the island’s second city of Santiago de Cuba. The demonstration late on Sunday was a rare public show of disenchantment against Cuba’s communist government, and was apparently led by parents struggling to feed their children in the face of a worsening food crisis. The protesters reportedly chanted: “Without electricity and food, the people get hot.” Power cuts of up to 18 hours a day have meant that as the island heads into summer it is almost impossible to preserve what little food there is. Sunday’s protests reportedly began when mothers turned up at a government building complaining they could not provide for their children, chanting: “We are hungry.” Similar protests broke out in El Cobre and Bayamo, while smaller groups gathered in Santa Marta, near the Varadero beach resort, and in the city of Matanzas. The US embassy in Cuba tweeted: “We urge the Cuban government to respect the human rights of the protestors and address the legitimate needs of the Cuban people.” But a US state department spokesman said it was “absurd” to suggest Washington was behind the protests. Cuba is in the grip of an economic slump, worsened by soaring inflation and the sense of an increasing divide between rich and poor. The state-run bodegas where Cubans traditionally receive their rations of staples such as rice, beans, salt, sugar, coffee and, crucially, baby milk, are increasingly empty. Meanwhile, small shops have popped up across the island after small and medium-sized private enterprises were allowed to open in an effort to ease the shortages. But with state salaries now as low as $10 a month when measured against black market currency rates, products in these private stores are far beyond the reach of anyone without access to money from abroad or hard currency from jobs in tourism and business. Beatriz Johnson, the first secretary of Santiago’s communist party, addressed the crowd in Santiago from a rooftop, telling protesters the government was in the process of putting together a “food basket” that would include rice and sugar. She later told reporters her explanations of the situation had been listened to “attentively” and “respectfully”. Her approach marked a stark contrast to the government response during widespread protests in July 2021, after which more than 1,000 people were detained. At that time, Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel called on “all revolutionaries to go to the streets to defend the revolution”, adding the historically resonant command: “The order to fight has been given.” Díaz-Canel blamed Sunday’s protests on “enemies of the revolution”, “mediocre politicians” and “terrorists” in south Florida. The Cuban government blames the nearly 64-year-old US trade embargo for Cuba’s economic situation. Beyond the capital, Havana, where the vast majority of diplomats, foreign media and businesspeople live and work, the situation facing Cubans is increasingly bleak. The currency, the Cuban peso, was trading on Monday at 325 to the dollar, against an official rate of 24 (another rate of 120 is used for certain items). Recently, the price of gasoline went up fivefold, and GDP is 10% below its level in 2019. The number of tourists coming to the island from Europe and Canada, a major source of income, is stagnating, according to the Aruba-based Tourism Analytics. In February, the minister of the economy, Alejandro Gil – the public face of economic reforms that have seen inflation take hold – was dismissed for “grave errors”, and was later put under government investigation. On X, the writer Yuliet Teresa called the US embassy’s response to the protests “hypocritical and cynical”, but suggested the Cuban media should report “what people feel, their anxieties and concerns”. Cuba state television’s main news discussion programme announced the subject of Monday’s show would be: “The United States, the Miami mafia and the anti-Cuban campaigns.”