At least once a day, fans, air conditioners and refrigerators stop working in Egypt, due to power cuts, exasperating the population who are suffocating under scorching temperatures.
The elevators stop, the televisions and the Wi-Fi networks go out for the duration of these outages, which until now lasted an hour or two but which, for a few days now, have exceeded three hours.
Over the past year, the shortages of energy and foreign currencies which have hit Egypt have led the government to introduce these planned power cuts.
In Aswan, the major southern city, and its outskirts, where it was nearly 50 degrees in the shade in June, “The lights go out and the water stops for up to four hours a day”tells AFP a resident of a neighboring village, who presents himself under the assumed name of Tarek for fear of reprisals.
“In the villages, it’s worse”he said, “there is no planning, food gets lost in refrigerators and people get heat stroke amid general indifference”.
In June, an Aswan MP, Riham Abdelnaby, reported that dozens of people had died of heat exhaustion. She called for her governorate to be exempted from the cuts, which, she said, “endanger the lives of citizens”.
With June’s scorching temperatures, the blackouts have become longer and more frequent, straining Egyptians’ nerves. Even talk show hosts, usually staunch supporters of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, are becoming exasperated.
“Not a luxury”
Neighborhoods plunged into darkness in Cairo, June 25, 2024 / Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
“Electricity is not a luxury, it is a most basic right”wrote presenter Lamis al-Hadidi on Monday on X.
“Power cuts deprive us of water, landline telephones, internet and they damage electrical appliances. Who will compensate people for all this? »she said.
Everyone remembers the summer of 2013, when power cuts fueled popular anger against the presidency of the Islamist Mohamed Morsi, which led to the ouster of the head of state orchestrated by the then Minister of Defense, Mr. Sisi.
Today, the cuts are hitting an Egypt facing the worst economic crisis in its history.
Since 2022, the Egyptian pound has lost two-thirds of its value and last year inflation reached a record high of 40%.
On Sunday, Amr Adib, host of the popular al-Hekaya show, criticized officials for not sticking to the announced schedule. Even though, he said, everyone fears upcoming “electricity price increases” envisaged by the government.
Government Apologies
Neighborhoods plunged into darkness in Cairo, June 25, 2024 / Khaled DESOUKI / AFP
This week, in addition to planned outages during the day, entire neighborhoods of Cairo experienced nighttime outages of up to two hours.
On Tuesday, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouli tried to calm the crowds by presenting “the government’s excuses”while acknowledging that the three-hour power outages would continue this week.
The increase in breakdowns, he explained, is due to the fact that a “gas field in a neighboring country”which supplies natural gas to Egypt and which he did not mention by name, was “unusable for more than 12 hours”.
He added that Egypt would spend around $1.2 billion in July, or 2.6 percent of the country’s precious foreign exchange reserves, for fuel supplies.
If the government intends to end the cuts “by the third week of July”he said, these should resume in the fall before ending definitively at the end of the year.
Although there is no official report, these measures have already caused victims in Egypt.
In Aswan, “About 40 heat-related deaths” were reported in June, Abdelnaby told local media.
In Alexandria, in the north, a musician, Mohammed Ali Nasr, died after falling into the shaft of a stuck elevator during a breakdown.
Although most Egyptians plan their outings to avoid getting stuck in elevators, similar incidents have caused at least four deaths since last year, according to media reports.
