Millions of Yemenis live in Hodeidah, which is under the control of the Houthi militia, in miserable living and humanitarian conditions, which have worsened further with the rise in temperatures in conjunction with the absence of electricity from which the coup plotters seize billions of their allocations, according to informed sources and activists who call for alleviating the suffering of the population.
The severe heat wave comes with the continued power cuts for more than 22 hours a day for the city’s residents, amid accusations by prominent leaders of the Houthi group of looting about 21 billion riyals that were earmarked for electricity subsidies.
While local sources have directly accused the group of being behind the deprivation of the residents of the city of Hodeidah, the sources confirmed that the militias recently refused to purchase fuel to run many power stations.
Residents in the city of Hodeidah say that their suffering during the summer this year with the electricity cuts by the group reached a climax that made them unable to bear it, especially the elderly and those with diabetes, stress, heart and other chronic diseases.
Residents talked about the majority of families seeking refuge in the city of Al-Hodeidah after they had to leave their homes involuntarily, and live temporarily in some streets and under trees to escape the high temperature.
Given the continued deliberate disregard by the putschists about the suffering of the residents of Hodeidah, social media has been buzzing over the past few days with pictures and scenes, some of which showed a kind of rash rampant in the bodies of dozens of children, in addition to other hardships suffered by the residents of the city, which tops the Yemeni cities in terms of its resources that go to the pockets of leaders. The community and its supervisors.
Yemeni activists launched on social media platforms a wide electronic campaign to denounce the deprivation of electricity in Hodeidah in light of the sweltering summer. The campaign touched on great difficulties faced by the people as a result of the lack of current and the militias looting billions of revenues from the fund designated to support services in the city.
This campaign was met with an unprecedented interaction by activists, media professionals, bloggers and citizens of Hodeidah and from other cities under the control of the group, under the hashtag “Hodeidah dies.”
Activists revealed that the militias collected about 21 billion riyals by imposing 3 riyals (then 5 and 8) on each liter of fuel entering Hodeidah ports through the establishment of the so-called Hodeidah Support and Development Fund dedicated to electricity, water and health projects.
They emphasized that the coup group collected for this alleged fund during its first year in 2017, about 7 billion riyals, or approximately 21 billion until 2020, without calculating the amounts that entered the fund from fuel vessel fees during the two months of the armistice.
The activists accused the leader loyal to the group, Muhammad Qahim, who impersonated the Hodeidah governorate, of being behind the looting of the Electricity Support Fund after handing over its management to the Houthi leader, Abdul Ghani al-Madani, in exchange for 60 million riyals he receives per month.
In a comment, a deputy in the illegal Houthi parliament in Sana’a explained that their council had previously approved 8 riyals deducted from each liter of oil and a bag of wheat entering the port of Hodeidah in favor of Hodeidah electricity within the framework of what was called the governorate support fund.
Representative Abdo Bishr indicated that these amounts are still deducted and supplied to Sanaa, while the residents of Hodeidah are without electricity and die daily from the heat. “We want to know where all that money is going,” he said.
For his part, journalist Mahmoud Al-Atmi stated that “the group cuts electricity to hospitals and patients, such as a dialysis center for patients with kidney failure, and provides service for limited hours to Al-Thawra Hospital, which is the largest hospital in Al-Hodeidah, while the current reaches the apartment of the smallest Houthi leader coming from Saada who cannot stand the Hodeidah heat.” ».
Al-Atmi said, “Imagine that the Houthi leader coming from Saada, Muhammad Al-Ahmadi Al-Marani, owns only 6 stations in the city of Hodeidah, with the capacity of each generator reaching 3 megawatts, and he is one of the biggest influencers in the electricity sector.”
He added, “Since the operation of government stations in 2018, the revolutionaries have spent huge sums of money on electricity maintenance without any oversight, and these funds have gone into the pockets of militia leaders, led by Abdul Ghani al-Madani, Mahdi al-Mashat and Muhammad Ayyash Qahim.”
Activist Abdullah Al-Halabi considered that the campaign comes with the aim of putting pressure on the United Nations Mission to support the Hodeidah Agreement to take serious steps to prevent the Houthis from using electricity to enrich and finance the war, and in order to return the previous government tariff of 7 riyals instead of the 250 and 400 riyals that go into the pockets of the coup leaders.
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