Cuba announced on Wednesday it was temporarily lifting restrictions on travelers bringing food, medicines and hygiene products into the country in an apparent acknowledgment of demands from anti-government demonstrators.

Thousands took to the streets across the island nation last weekend to protest chronic shortages of basic goods, curbs on civil liberties and the government’s handling of a worsening coronavirus outbreak, marking the most significant unrest in decades.

The rare wave of demonstrations against the country’s communist government has been fanned by a deepening economic crisis worsened by the pandemic. Covid-19 has devastated the country’s tourism industry, sending Cuba’s economy into a deep slump.

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