Protests in Aden… and Yemenis accuse UAE of destroying the city
The temporary Yemeni capital Aden witnessed angry popular protests, accompanied by riots and road blockages,amidst Yemeni accusations of the UAE of destroying the city.
The protests in Aden condemned the power cuts from the city 4 days ago, after the floods that struck the city last Tuesday caused the electrical system to go out of service completely.
And at dawn today, Saturday, the legitimate government announced that the service began with a gradual return, in an effort to absorb popular anger.
Yemeni sources said that hundreds of residents took to the streets of the directorates of Khor Maksar, Al-Mualla, Crater, Sheikh Othman, Dar Saad and Mansoura, to condemn the power cuts and the deterioration of services in general.
According to the sources, the protesters cut a number of main streets after setting fire to damaged tires, and also tried to burn government offices, most notably the headquarters of the Statistics Office in Al-Tawahi, after setting fire to one of its main gates.
Aden suffers from a severe shortage of many services, but the situation has deteriorated further since the floods of last Tuesday, amid a media exchange between the government and the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council, where the latter accuses the legitimacy of deliberately in the policy of collective punishment with services, noting them, being in control of the security decision.
As the protests continued, the legitimate government rushed to announce a “gradual return” of electricity to Aden, after resuming the entry into the Hasswah thermal station and one of the new stations to service after a number of days’ interruption.
The government stated, in a statement on its official account on Twitter, that the Al-Haswah station has returned with a capacity of 55 megawatts that can be increased within the coming hours, indicating that this will be reflected in reducing the extinguishing hours and will continue efforts to improve electricity services.
Aden is one of the coastal cities that witness a significant increase in temperature and humidity during the summer, and over the past years successive Yemeni governments have been unable to secure continued electricity service around the clock, which forced the electrical station to install the current within hours in exchange for interruptions for other hours.
Despite the government announcement of the gradual return, Al-Haswah Station confirmed that the return of 55 megawatts of service will raise the number of hours of electric current operation to three hours compared to a break of three hours.
The lack of services has caused increasing discontent with the UAE’s allies against Saudi Arabia, which has been running the military situation in the city since the departure of the Emirati forces last October.
Twitter users launched a campaign on Twitter denouncing the crimes of the UAE and its militias in the city, and Abu Dhabi’s constant plots to undermine the authority of the legitimate Yemeni government.
