Jigjiga and much of eastern Ethiopia have endured five nights without power after key transmission towers collapsed last week. The blackout has crippled services, impacted Ramadan observances, and left residents in the dark—literally and figuratively. Power may return by Monday.
Eastern Ethiopia remains gripped by a power crisis, now entering its fifth consecutive day, with Jigjiga, Harar, Dire Dawa, Fiiq, and Dhagaxbuur among the worst-affected towns. The outage—traced to the collapse of seven transmission towers near Awash—has created a humanitarian and economic disruption at a critical moment, with Ramadan observances, healthcare services, and daily commerce severely impacted.
Officials say the collapsed towers had long been compromised by metal theft, a chronic issue in Ethiopia’s infrastructure network. When heavy rains and strong winds hit the region last week, the already-weakened structures gave way. The result: a total blackout across a swath of eastern Ethiopia, cutting off the flow of electricity from the national grid.
“Vandals had targeted these towers for some time,” Jigjiga’s Mayor Eng. Shafi Ahmed Ma’alim said, “and when the weather turned, they came down.” Attempts to mitigate the outage using wind turbines in Aysha failed, leaving entire cities dark.
For a region already contending with economic hardship, the blackout has been particularly disruptive during Ramadan, when nighttime activity increases. “People must move around for prayers and gatherings at night. But the city is pitch black,” the mayor noted. Mosques, dependent on diesel generators, are struggling with rising fuel costs that render evening prayer services unsustainable in many areas.
The economic toll is mounting. Small businesses, especially those reliant on refrigeration, power tools, or digital transactions, have been left stranded. “My fridge is off. Everything is rotting, and customers can’t pay because their phones are dead,” said Fardowso Yusuf Omar, a market vendor in Jigjiga. Factories remain idle, and communication infrastructure is faltering, isolating residents from friends and family as mobile devices run out of battery.
Amid these challenges, the government has moved quickly to respond. Emergency teams have been deployed to repair and replace the seven downed towers, each of which carried five high-voltage transmission lines. The mayor has confirmed that repairs are largely complete and that power is expected to return to Jigjiga by Monday night.
While the rapid repair effort is commendable, the incident highlights a deeper issue: chronic infrastructure vulnerability and insufficient protection of critical systems. The theft of metal components from power lines is not new, and without a national plan to deter vandalism and fortify key infrastructure, similar outages could recur.
This blackout is not just an energy failure—it is a warning. For regions like Jigjiga and other parts of eastern Ethiopia, resilience planning, infrastructure security, and decentralized energy solutions are now urgent policy imperatives. The consequences of inaction are plain to see: cities paralyzed, economies disrupted, and lives dimmed—literally and figuratively—when the power goes out.
