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Iraqis protest in Bagdad against Energy Failure amid Freak Heat Wave


Fri 02 Jul 2021 | 10:34 PM
Ahmed Moamar

Hundreds of Iraqis gathered this afternoon in Bagdad, the capital city of Iraq, to protest the of failure energy and cut off supplies of freshwater over the last few days despite the freak heatwave that hit the country.

Meteorologists said that temperature degrees in Iraq exceeded 50 Celsius in some parts of Iraq.

Prayers performed Friday prayer under umbrellas, but rivulets of sweat ran down their faces in that sweltering weather.

They attended the prayers, then marched in the streets of the capital against blackouts.

Haydar Hussein, an Iraqi worker who took part in protests today, said that the situation in the country gets worse.

He added that electricity cuts off for at least ten hours a day.

Others complained that the national grid of electricity broke down before dawn in one of the worst cases this year.

But some lines resumed working at noon especially in Bagdad, where inhabitants get better supplies compared to what others get in the poorer parts in the middle and south of the country.

The Iraqis bring the blame to their government that imports energy from neighboring Iran.

They complain that the authorities failed to develop an Iraqi infrastructure to serve the population.

Also, Iraqi local sources revealed that the minister of electricity resigned this week due to the crisis of energy.

Haydar al-Saeedy, a chieftain (sheik) of a clan who took part in today's protests, stressed that governments in the years followed the toppling of former President Saddam Hussein in 2003, couldn't succeed in securing sufficient supplies of electricity.

Iran's exports of electricity to Iraq have dwindled amid attacks launched by armed men on lines of electricity which led to worsening the problem.

Houses in Iraq use air conditioning for longer hours during the summer months because the rickety grid suffers from failures many times a day.

The occupation of Iraq by the US and other western nations' forces hurts the country badly for over 18 years.