Sawt Falasteen - Cubans demand end of US embargo in bike protest

Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel greeted the crowd before the "anti-imperialist youth parade" set out across the capital's famed oceanfront Malecon.

The demonstration comes as US President Donald Trump has stepped up pressure on Cuba's communist government, imposing a de facto oil blockade since January and musing about "taking" the island.

The country has been under a US trade embargo since 1962, which the government blames for Cuba's economic hardship.

The demonstrators rode bicycles and electric cargo tricycles that have proliferated as an alternative mode of transportation amid fuel shortages.

"We have a lot to defend," Daniel Martinez, an 18-year-old student who cheered on the demonstrators near the US embassy, told AFP. "The more united we are, the better."

The oil blockade has deepened the country's energy crisis, with Cubans enduring regular blackouts along with fuel rationing, soaring gasoline prices and falling tourism.

"They are strangling us," said Ivan Beltran, 62, who rode his electric tricycle with a photo of the late Cuban revolution leader Fidel Castro on the windshield.

Trump gave Cuba a reprieve from the oil embargo this week as he allowed a Russian tanker to bring 730,000 barrels of crude to the island.

Russia announced Thursday that it was preparing to send a second oil tanker to Cuba.

Q.Jaber--SF-PST