Northern Sudan farmers protest electricity bills, block road to Egypt

In protest against an increase of the electricity tariffs in Northern State, activists and farmers in Ed Debba yesterday set up a sit-in and closed the Sheryan El Shimal highway to Egypt.

Abde Ali Hussein, member of the Resistance Committees Coordination in Dongola told Radio Dabanga that “the authorities in the state raised the electricity tariffs without any justification. Farmers in particular are negatively affected.”

In response, the Ed Debba Resistance Committees Coordination organised a sit-in and closed the highway to Egypt for buses and lorries. “Transport of wounded and sick people by ambulances and private vehicles is still possible.”

Farmers and members of resistance committees from all localities of Northern State are participating in the sit-in. “They will only open the road again when the decision to increase the electricity bills is cancelled, and other demands, including compensation for properties lost because of the construction of the Meroe Dam, have been met,” Hussein explained.

Separately, farmers in El Golid met with the locality’s executive director and director of agriculture on Sunday, and gave them 72 hours to cancel the electricity tariffs increase, activist Soheib Osman told Radio Dabanga yesterday.

Last year, the federal Ministry of Finance planned a significant increase in electricity prices for 2022, as it decided to continue with lifting subsidies on consumer goods, in order to meet the demands of the World Bank. In early January 2021, the power tariffs already increased with 500 per cent.