According to several accounts on social networks, “new demonstrations and roads were blocked” in Tiaret, 280 km southwest of Algiers, from the start of the sacrifice festival, marked by large consumption of water .
Images on these accounts show at least two roads blocked by stones and improvised barricades between Tiaret and the neighboring towns of Frenda and Boucheguif.
No public or private media reported it.
“Your promises to the inhabitants of Tiaret were in vain, from the first day of Eid, several areas are without water,” protested a user on the page of the Algerian Water Company.
About 40 km from Tiaret, in Rahouia, images from Internet users showed on Monday a gathering of citizens who “prevented the prefect from leaving the district headquarters until he listened to their concerns.”
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Since May, the watercourses of this semi-desert region and the Bakhedda dam, the area’s only source of supply, have been dry. At the beginning of June, the first demonstrations with burning tires and roadblocks took place near Tiaret, according to images on social networks.
Faced with these unexpected protests occurring at the start of the campaign for the anticipated presidential election of September 7, President Tebboune convened a council of ministers on June 2 and ordered the “ministers of the Interior and Hydraulic Resources to develop an urgent program and exceptional” within 48 hours.
The next day, the two ministers Brahim Merad and Taha Derbal visited Tiaret and presented a plan to resolve the problem “before Eid al-Adha.”
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On Friday, Mr. Derbal returned to Tiaret for the commissioning of a city supply system from drilled wells connected to the network in two weeks. This apparently solved the problem in the city center but not in other neighborhoods, according to statements from Internet users on the “Algerian Water” page.
Since the election of Mr. Tebboune in December 2019, after the resignation of his predecessor Abdelaziz Bouteflika, driven out by the pro-democracy Hirak movement, demonstrations have been very rare in Algeria.
The president has not yet said whether he will be a candidate for a new mandate at the beginning of September but he is very present in the media, inaugurating projects in Algeria or participating in summits such as that of the G7 in Italy in recent days.
By Le360 Africa (with AFP)
06/17/2024 at 9:07 p.m.
