HAVANA(National Times)- Cuban authorities began to free prisoners on Friday after announcing it would pardon 2,010 inmates, the second release in less than a month as it faces heightened US pressure.

More than 20 inmates came out of La Lima penitentiary in east Havana, holding their release papers, crying and hugging relatives who had been waiting for them all morning, journalists said. “Thank you for this opportunity that they gave us,” said Albis Gainza, 46, who had served half of a six-year sentence for robbery.

He said he could not sleep after learning he would be released. “This needs to keep going … (and) more are released,” Gainza said.

The Cuban government announced that it would pardon 2,010 prisoners as a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture” to mark Holy Week. It did not link it to talks with the United States, but the move came days after President Donald Trump eased a de facto oil blockade of Cuba by allowing a Russian tanker to deliver crude to the fuel-starved island.

This “follows a long pattern where there is a song and dance about how it has nothing to do with negotiations when it clearly does,” Andres Pertierra, a historian of Cuba at the University of Wisconsin in the United States, said.

The Trump administration has called for change in communist-run Cuba’s system of government and the US president has mused about “taking” the island. But the two sides have also held talks recently.

Releasing political prisoners has long been a core US demand in Cuba, but it was not immediately clear if any were among those pardoned as no list was published.