One of the leaders of the so-called Omar Mukhtar military operations room of Dignity Operation slammed a ban on gas cylinders and ordered an obstruction to any trucks loaded with cooking gas cylinders entering Derna.
“Four fuel tank trucks and two diesel fuel ones can enter Derna every ten days.” The Dignity Operation militiaman added.
The coordinator of the cooking gas distribution firms in Derna, Abdelsalam Al-Daryori, said the ban is equal to declaring war on civilians, pinpointing that gas cylinders have totally disappeared from the city markets and all the gasoline stations are empty.
“Trucks loaded with gas cylinders are forced to unload them in neighboring towns on the fringes of Derna like Kersa and Ras Al-Hilal or Sousa, so that Derna gets nothing from the cooking gas portions allocated for it by the oil marketing company.” Al-Daryori added.
He also warned of the repercussions of this crisis on the vital institutions in Derna and its bad impact on the daily lives of people, indicating that if the cooking gas ban persists, hospitals and medical centers won’t be able to provide meals for the patients.
“The steam power plant in the city needs 15 gas cylinders a week to activate the water boilers and if those were not provided, then the plant will shut down and Derna will go into a total blackout.” Al-Daryori went on.
He added that the city is also suffering from a lack of fuel as people are obliged to cross 45 km west of Derna to fill up their car tanks in Sousa, adding that Dignity Operation forces, who have checkpoints across the roads, confiscate any extra fuel they might bring with them in their cars and sell them war businessmen, who sell back on roads with unimaginable prices.
Worse yet, the head of the distillation station in Derna, Ahmed Al-Naas, said the station will shut down if gas cylinders were not supplied soon to the city, saying the stations units will stop working and thus water supplies will cease to reach the city’s neighborhoods.
