In June, the residents of Tiaret, a small town in western Algeria’s interior high plateau region, decided to make their discontent known. After sustaining weeks of cuts to the town’s water supply, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of a local administrative building. In other parts of Tiaret, some protesters blocked roads with burning tires.
The cuts were due to a lack of water in the nearby Bakhedda dam. But the protests were triggered by unkept promises from authorities, who had vowed to resolve the issue before Ramadan and failed to do so. Faced with a lack of water, some residents in Tiaret were forced to postpone the traditional slaughtering of a sheep that marks the religious holiday’s celebration.
Localized water shortages are not new in Algeria. In the summer of 2021, for instance, Algiers—the capital, which lies 165 miles to the north of Tiaret—endured interruptions in water access due to drought. In response, angry residents temporarily blocked the road to the airport with burning tires to protest weeks of rationing in the city.