Yemenis organized a march in the southwestern city of Taiz, on Saturday; To protest against the collapse of the value of the riyal and the acute shortage of oil derivatives and basic materials.
According to The Eastern Herald correspondent, hundreds participated in a spontaneous march that roamed several streets of Taiz, which is under the control of the Yemeni government.
The protesters chanted slogans calling for urgent government intervention to stop the currency’s collapse and provide oil derivatives and basic materials.
Through their chants, they held the Yemeni government, the “Southern Transitional Council”, the Arab coalition and the “Houthis” group responsible for the deterioration of the currency not witnessed in decades before the war.
In an interview with The Eastern Herald, Faisal Al-Hudhaifi, one of the protesters, said: “We went out today in order to stop the collapse of the Yemeni riyal.”
Al-Hudhaifi, who works as a teacher in his fifties, added: “We are suffering from deadly hunger, and there is a mass massacre awaiting Yemenis from all of their families, due to the deterioration of the riyal and the silence of the official authorities.”
For days, the governorates of Aden, Hadramaut and Taiz have been witnessing angry protests denouncing the deterioration of services and the significant rise in food prices due to the unprecedented deterioration in the history of the Yemeni riyal. Where the price of one dollar exceeded 1000 riyals.
Before the war that began in 2015 in Yemen, one dollar was sold at 215 riyals, while with the decline of the riyal, the value of the salaries of many categories fell to the equivalent of less than $100.
In the same context, the merchants of the city of Taiz announced a partial strike, starting from Saturday, in protest against the collapse of the currency and the continuation of the siege imposed on the city.
The Taiz City Merchants Confederation (a union entity), said in a brief statement: “They will carry out a 4-hour strike on Saturday.”
The merchants vowed to “continue to escalate and strike if their demands are not met, to put an end to the collapse of the national currency, open the siege on the city, and find real solutions to stop the deterioration of the economy.”
As of 14:50 GMT, the Yemeni authorities did not issue any immediate comment, even about the protests and the partial strike announced by traders in Taiz.
Human rights and humanitarian organizations accuse the “Houthis” of imposing a siege on the center of Taiz governorate (which is under government control) since the outbreak of the conflict in 2015, and of preventing humanitarian relief convoys from reaching the population and those affected by the war, which the group denies.
For nearly 7 years, Yemen has been witnessing a war that has claimed 233,000 lives, and 80 percent of the population of about 30 million people has become dependent on aid to survive.
