Suffocating fuel crisis sweeps oil-rich Hadramout

HADRMOUT, July. 13 (YPA) – Hundreds of cars and motorbikes are waiting in long queues to supply with the fuel after oil stations closed their doors in the city of Seiyun, the provincial capital of oil-rich Hadramout, to citizens.

Local sources affirmed on Thursday that a suffocating fuel crisis came amid news of a dose of oil derivatives will take during the coming hours due to the collapse of the Yemeni riyal against foreign currencies.

The stations’ owners deliberately closed them to citizens and sold fuel at imaginary prices, which may amount to about 25 thousand riyals for a 20-liter gallon, due to the high price of the Saudi riyal, which approaches 400 Yemeni riyals, during the past hours, while $1 equals 1425 riyals.

It is expected that the price of a 20-liter gallon of petroleum will reach 24,000 Yemeni riyals, and a gallon of diesel will raise 22,000 riyals in the coming hours.

This came after local calls for civil disobedience in all areas of districts of Wadi and desert of Hadramout, in protest of the collapse of the Yemeni riyal against foreign currencies, which has catastrophically affected the prices of basic foodstuffs for citizens.

The coalition-held southern and eastern provinces of Yemen have been witnessed angry popular protests due to the economic collapse and the deterioration of basic services in electricity, water, education and health, in addition to the security chaos that afflicts those areas without any serious solutions by the coalition and its allied government to limit the economic disaster that targets the living conditions of the citizens there.

The Aden government continued to pump 5 trillion and 320 billion of newly printed local banknotes without cash cover since the coalition transferred the management of the central bank from Sana’a at the end of 2016, which led to a gradual collapse of the price of the Yemeni riyal in those areas in exchange for preserving its value against the dollar in Sanaa.

AA