Aden- In a crowded neighborhood in the city of Aden, Mansour Sufyan, 45, stands in front of his darkening house, surrounded by his three children, looking for a despair of an air that relieves a luminous summer flames in the city that the internationally recognized Yemeni government takes the country’s temporary capital.
This scene is no exception, but rather reflects the daily suffering of the inhabitants of Aden, who are under the weight of a stifling electricity crisis, turning their lives into an unbearable hell, and pushed the exhausted city towards a human catastrophe waving on the horizon.
Mansour lives in the Sheikh Othman area with his family of 5 individuals, alternating in suffocating nights between the walls of the house and a surface filled with mosquitoes, as is the case of thousands of residents who are forced to spend their nights in the open or over the surfaces, to escape rooms that were transformed by heat and the power cut into breathtaking and sleeping ovens.
The seasons of suffering
Aden suffers from an almost complete collapse in the electricity system, with a break of more than 22 hours a day, in a crisis that is the worst in the history of the city, which was the first to know the electricity service in the Arabian Peninsula during the 1920s.
Mansour says to Al -Jazeera Net, describing his suffering: “Sleep has become a distant dream … the night is hell from heat, and the day is more severe.”
The suffering is not limited to the heat and insomnia, but the crisis turned into a nightmare that threatens the lives of the population, after it threw its shadow over various aspects of life, and led to the disruption of vital services, such as water, sanitation and health care, to become one of the most severe suffering in the city.
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The continuation of interruptions during the past days led to the escalation of a wave of popular anger, as the residents went out in angry protests that included igniting car tires and closing the streets, to condemn the deterioration of public services, foremost of which is electricity.
Last Monday, Aden witnessed a tragic incident, as a citizen and his wife died in suffocation of carbon monoxide gas inside their car, after they resorted to sleep to escape from the extreme heat.
Although the chronic electricity crisis is repeated every year in Aden, especially during the summer, the city has not witnessed a comprehensive and long -term interruption as it happens today, which threatens the lives of the population and paralyzes vital facilities.
The Undersecretary of Aden Governorate for the Projects Sector, Eng. Ghassan Al -Zamaki, describes the current situation as “catastrophic and tragic”, in light of the high temperatures and almost complete collapse of the energy system, stressing in his talk to “Al -Jazeera Net” that the crisis directly affects water and sanitation services, which requires urgent moves from the concerned authorities to prevent the exacerbation of the situation.
The roots of the crisis
Officials attribute the main reason for the aggravation of the crisis to the worn out infrastructure, and the decline in production capacity compared to the actual need, as well as the chronic deficit in saving fuel and the necessary spare parts, and exorbitant operating costs.
The city of Aden depends on a mixture of stations working with diesel, diesel and raw oil, along with a solar energy field.
Out of 17 generation stations, only 5 are currently operating, while 12 stations stopped due to running out of fuel and the absence of maintenance, according to officials in the sector.
The Yemeni government says that the cost of operating electricity in Aden is about 55 million dollars per month, at a rate of 1.8 million dollars per day, while the monthly revenue does not cover the cost of operating one day, which increases the complexity of the financial and service crisis.
Engineer Al -Zamaki notes that the roots of the crisis are due to the stoppage of Aden refineries after the 2015 summer war, which was the main source of refining and distributing oil derivatives to power stations, forcing the government to import fuel at exorbitant prices, especially since most stations depend on diesel, which is one of the most expensive fuels.
He adds that the “President Station” project, which works with raw oil with a capacity of 64 megawatta, partially contributed to the reduction of the crisis, but the raw fuel supplies are irregular due to the stopping of production in the fields of Hadramout, Shabwa and Marib as a result of the Houthi attacks, which made the situation more complicated.
Gap
According to Al -Zameki, Aden needs about 600 megawatts per day to meet the demand and exceed the crisis, while the available obstetric energy is not exceeding at best 138 megawatta, which creates a large gap and increases the suffering of the population.
The crisis exacerbates the deterioration of public services and the acute economic collapse that the city suffers from, in addition to the continuous deterioration in the value of the local currency, which led to high prices and the expansion of poverty, and making resorting to generators or buying fuel is an unable to lift unable to the majority of families already exhausted.
Fears of epidemics and diseases are increasing, especially after the Office of the Department of Epidemiological Monitoring Administration in mid -April announced the registration of more than 50 thousand cases of suspicion of malaria, and a thousand confirmed cases of dengue fever, in addition to 12 deaths.
Observers fear that the continuation of the crisis without urgent intervention to provide fuel and rehabilitate the infrastructure of the electricity sector will lead to more human deterioration, which may complicate the situation more.
Disratory repercussions
In this context, the journalist and economic analyst Majid Al -Daari warns of catastrophic repercussions for the electricity crisis, indicating that its impact is not limited to the living aspects, but rather extends to a comprehensive economic, health and humanitarian crisis.
He said in his speech to “Al -Jazeera Net” that the absence of electricity disrupts various economic activities, starting with grocery sellers whose goods are destroyed in refrigerators, through the owners of workshops, restaurants and buffets whose work stops, up to families that lack the most basic elements of comfort.
He pointed out that resorting to private generators increases the financial burdens, as operating costs exceed the profits that can be achieved, especially in light of the continuous economic collapse and the deterioration of the local currency price.
