Shafaq News-Dhi Qar
Dozens ofpeople staged protests in the center and outskirts of Iraq's Dhi Qar provinceon Thursday over a sharp decline in electricity supply, Shafaq Newscorrespondent reported.
The protestersblocked main roads with burning tires in anger over poor services, threateningto escalate and storm the main generation and distribution stations ifauthorities do not meet their demands to increase the province's share of powerand secure supply. Some residential neighborhoods have gone without electricityentirely for two consecutive days.
The unrest inDhi Qar follows a wider wave of summer protests across several Iraqi provinces,where temperatures have surpassed 50 degrees Celsius in some areas. In Wasitprovince, hundreds demonstrated as temperatures peaked at 44 degrees Celsius,and clashes left more than 50 police officers injured and more than 10 peopledetained.
Demand in Iraqexceeds 60,000 megawatts this summer against a shortfall of nearly 40,000megawatts, according to the Ministry of Electricity, leaving many householdswith only a few hours of state-supplied electricity per day and forcingmillions to rely on private generators. Transmission and distribution lossesstill reach about 60 percent.
The shortagesare tied largely to gas supply. Iraq depends on Iranian gas imports to generatea substantial share of its electricity, and those supplies were disrupted afterthe war on Iran earlier this year and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, theministry said.
: 40-GW electricity gap forces Iraq to back private generators