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- In a televised address, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called on his supporters to fight in the streets.
- Thousands of protestors have taken to the streets calling on Díaz-Canel to resign.
- The demontrators are unhappy with economic woes and a surge in COVID-19 infections.
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Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel called on his supporters to take to the streets and fight amid ongoing anti-government protests in the country.
"The order to fight has been given – into the street, revolutionaries!" he said in an address on TV," Díaz-Canel said during a TV speech on Sunday, according to the BBC.
"We call on all the revolutionaries of the country, all the communists, to go out in the streets where these provocations will occur, from now on and in the next few days. And to face them in a decisive, firm, and courageous way," he added, according to i24 News.
Thousands of demonstrators took to the streets over the weekend, calling on Díaz-Canel to resign in the largest protests in the country in decades, Reuters reported.
The anti-government protestors have grown frustrated with ongoing economic troubles in the country, which are the worst since the fall of the Soviet Union, according to the report. People in Cuba have reported difficulty accessing basic goods while the government clamps down on civil liberties and COVID-19 infections surge, according to the report.
Cuba reported nearly 7,000 new COVID-19 cases and 47 deaths from the disease on Sunday - a record amid protestors' calls to ramp up the nation's vaccination effort, according to the BBC.
In his televised address Monday, Díaz-Canel claimed the anti-government protests were led by mercenaries hired by the US in an attempt to destabilize Cuba, the BBC reported. He also blamed US-led social media campaigns, according to Reuters.