In his twenties, Daood[1] felt secure and mostly in control of his own destiny. He had a thriving welding workshop and had earned enough to get married and start a family. Life was good. Then Yemen’s war broke out just as he was turning 30, and with the onset of conflict, his fortunes changed. Daood’s shop depended on electricity—and although four-to-five-hour power outages had long been a part of life in Yemen, soon the power was off more than it was on. Moreover, the price of the diesel that he needed to run his backup generator spiked along with the costs of other supplies that he needed to keep welding. Eventually, his customers could no longer afford to pay what he had to charge to turn even a meager profit, and he had to close the shop. Once a capable provider, today the 38-year-old father depends on occasional distributions of food and hygiene assistance from local non-profits as a lifeline for feeding his seven children.
This May, with summer approaching, the electricity woes that put Daood’s shop out of business began ramping up once again. Residents of Yemen’s southern port city of Aden—who number around one million—reported 10-12 hour power cuts, with temperatures reaching as high as 104 degrees Fahrenheit (40 degrees Celsius) in the stifling humidity of the coastal climate. Last June, Yemen’s Internationally Recognized Government (IRG) was only able to supply power to the city for two to three hours a day. As a result, many elderly and ill died, while others suffered heat rash, cramps, heat exhaustion, and heat stroke—which can have lifelong consequences.[2] With 2024 now heating up while power cuts lengthen again, simmering tempers have already reached a boiling point. On May 15, Yemeni authorities deployed security forces and armored vehicles across Aden in response to several days of protests involving hundreds of demonstrators in three central districts of the city.[3]
As some Yemenis blocked roads and set tires on fire to demand a solution to the energy crisis, others just passed around jokes on social media. One image recently shared shows a young man clothed in pajamas reclining on a pillow in a pool of brackish water with an upright fan pointed at him. The caption is accompanied by a broken heart emoji and reads: My last will and testament. I charge my family that if I die in this heat, you must serve ice cream at my funeral. Don’t exasperate people with coffee. I want them to remember me with mercy. Signed, “the last will of every Adeni.”[4]
Alongside the oppressive heat, residents of Aden are also enduring an oppressive darkness after the sun goes down with the electricity out. When asked if she was using candles to light her home after dark, one woman said, “No, if I light a candle, I will melt before the candle does.”[5]
In the eerie darkness of the unplugged city, Adeni’s have also been going increasingly silent on social media—no longer able to find even comic relief in their shared suffering as it becomes steadily more difficult to keep phones and other electronics charged. The cause of the acute energy crisis in southern Yemen during the sweltering summer months of 2023 and now 2024 is a shortage of diesel for power stations. The IRG pays up to $1 billion USD a year to seven private companies to import fuel but fell behind on payments after Houthi drone strikes on IRG oil export facilities in late 2022 cut off the IRG’s largest source of revenue. This blockade that has kept the IRG’s unrefined oil products out of international markets cost the IRG approximately $2 billion in 2023. Now, Houthi attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden have additionally disrupted deliveries of fuel to IRG ports. Moreover, in 2024, the IRG appointed a new prime minister who announced the opening of public tenders for fuel importers to bid on the IRG’s fuel contracts—angering the companies that have cornered the lucrative deals thus far. In response, a commercial fuel tanker that arrived in Aden in May refused to unload its cargo unless the importer received payment in advance.[6]
This deepening diesel crisis has compounded existing deficiencies in Yemen’s energy sector, including poor infrastructure maintenance and insufficient generation capacity, while over nine years of conflict has damaged or destroyed power plants and transmission lines that were once functional. As of 2023, only 48.4 percent of Yemen’s population had some access to electricity at home. The public electric grid provided intermittent power for about half of the homes with access, while private diesel generators supplied the other half. Despite a surge in the popularity of solar panels during the war, renewable energy sources were still only providing one percent of Yemen’s energy. Plans do exist to further develop the renewable energy sector—however, turning them into a reality will require overcoming significant financing, regulatory, and technical barriers.[7]
For Yemenis like Daood, nearly a decade of war has left them largely bereft of livelihood opportunities and increasingly vulnerable to the daily trials of a life without electricity in the heat waves of summer. According to Human Rights Watch, the internationally protected right to an adequate standard of living includes everyone’s right, without discrimination, to sufficient, reliable, safe, clean, accessible, and affordable electricity. Access to electricity is also critical to ensuring other rights, including, but not limited to, health, housing, water, and education.[8] As Daood enters his 40s, restoring his resourcefulness as a provider along with a meaningful sense of self-determination will begin with restoring access to the basic services he needs to run his welding shop. For now, however, until the political will emerges to resolve the diesel crisis in Yemen’s south, many Yemeni families will be left to endure a long, hot summer with dark nights, and increasing isolation as their access to the internet and other forms of communication runs out with their phone batteries.
[1] Names changed to protect vulnerable Yemenis.
[2] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/16/yemen-aden-electricity-water-cuts-threaten-rights
[3] https://apnews.com/article/yemen-aden-electricity-protests-32c062a43fd4e0d22de62df35ccc3e4d
[4] In Yemen, bereaved families traditionally serve qishr a hot beverage brewed from coffee husks to the guests who come to comfort them.
[5] https://www.al-monitor.com/originals/2024/05/anger-clashes-yemens-aden-over-electricity-cuts
[6] https://apnews.com/article/yemen-aden-electricity-protests-32c062a43fd4e0d22de62df35ccc3e4d
[7] UNDP Yemen – Strategic Direction (2023 – 2025)
[8] https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/11/16/yemen-aden-electricity-water-cuts-threaten-rights
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