Residents of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, were this week interrupted from watching news of the war and the sporadic sound of shelling, to buy gallons of drinking water after it was cut off from their homes.
In addition, the majority of areas in the city suffered a total blackout at a time when the threat of the spread of the coronavirus looms in the country.
There was a total blackout in both the western and southern regions of the country.
Operation Volcano of Rage that is affiliated with Fayez al-Sarraj’s Government of National Accord accused what it called the “Haftar militias”, referring to the Commander of the Libyan National Army, of “shutting the gas pipe in the Sidi al-Sayeh area which feeds the western region with electricity days after closing the gas pipes in the Great Man Made River which also feeds the area.”
The Operation says the LNA did so to punish citizens, after it also halted the production and export of oil, incurring 4 billion dollars in losses.
Abdel-Moneim al-Hor, the Secretary-General of the Arab Organization for Human Rights, residing in al-Khums, a city east of the capital, told Asharq Al-Awsat, “We have been suffering from a cut in water and electricity supplies for days. Today I bought water and emptied it in the underground tanker of my home."
The General Electricity Company clarified two days ago that “an unknown group had shut down the gas pipe in the Sidi al-Sayeh area.”
It warned that “continuing to close it will cause a massive shortage in electricity production in the area and that manual loads will be resorted to in order to maintain the safety and stability of the electric grid”.
In addition to the power cut, Tripoli and the majority of cities in western Libya have suffered from water cuts for two days, in an operation that Sarraj’s forces see as deliberately depriving people of drinking water by the LNA as a tactic of war.
Despite the Great Man Made River administration announcing that drinking water supply has partially returned to some areas, it expects that “it will be cut off again in the capital over the continued raids by armed men of the control room.
The western Libyan cities also suffered the same fate, as citizens there complained of drinking water and electricity cuts, deepening their years-long crisis coupled with a rise in the price of fuel and cooking gas.
Ali Imlimdi, a lawyer who works and lives in the city of Sabha in the south, said that in addition to power cuts, people there “are facing a rise in the prices of cooking gas and fuel.”
He clarified that there was power rationing of up to nine hours a day . . . and once the Tripoli station is shut down, the Awbari gas station in turn also shuts down because it cannot withstand the pressure.
