Aden (South24) 

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Yesterday, protesters blocked several main roads in the capital, Aden, in South Yemen, in response to daily power outages lasting up to 20 hours.

Protesters used burning tires during the protest in the districts of Al-Mansoura, Al-Mualla, and Sirah, blocking traffic for hours.

The protesters expressed their anger at the deterioration of the electricity system in Aden after the city’s power stations stopped working due to running out of fuel.

In an official statement, the Security Department in Aden said it stands by the protesters' demands but warned against any illegal activities.

The statement said: “We appreciate the state of popular anger among the people of the capital, due to the ongoing power outages. We express our support for freedom of expression and protest guaranteed according to the law through peaceful means.”

"We warn against attacking citizens' interests and property or allowing any party to exploit popular anger in order to carry out sabotage," it added.

Today, STC President and PLC member Aidrous Al-Zubaidi met with the director of Aden Refineries Company to review what stage of completion the maintenance work is at. 

Al-Zubaidi stressed the importance of conducting maintenance quickly, so that the refinery for producing fuel for electricity can be restarted, and the importing of commercial fuel from abroad can be stopped.

The electricity crisis is not limited to only Aden, as outages in Abyan Governorate have so far been going on for 48 continuous hours.

The outages in Lahj and Al-Dhalea governorates have also reached a total length of more than one day. Hadramout, Al-Mahra, and Shabwa have been suffering from daily outages of up to 5 hours for every 2 hours of operation.