Arabic version: انقطاعات الكهرباء والمياه في تونس تثير مخاوف حقوقية

According to Allafrica, Human Rights Watch said Tunisian authorities failed to ensure adequate electricity and water supplies during two months of extreme summer heat, putting health and lives at risk. Rolling outages affected hospitals, water pumping stations and households, while authorities provided no transparent information about their impact.

In July 2026, Tunisia’s second-hottest July since 1950, the Tunisian Electricity and Gas Company reportedly introduced rotating outages because of inadequate capacity. Cuts were concentrated between 1 p.m. and 5 p.m., when air-conditioning demand rose, and crowd-sourced data indicated some lasted up to 12 hours. A second wave in late August brought cuts of up to two hours at a time in every region.

The Tunisian Young Doctors Association estimated on July 22 that 150 to 200 people had died over previous days from heatstroke or failures of electrically powered medical equipment. The Health Ministry later reported 633 heat-related medical cases in public hospitals, while denying that health services had been disrupted. A doctor at a major Tunis hospital told Human Rights Watch that limited generator capacity left most areas without power and that neonatal doctors manually ventilated newborns during one outage.

Electricity disruptions also interrupted pumping stations. The Tunisian Water Observatory recorded 361 cuts to potable-water distribution in August, contributing to a bottled-water shortage. Human Rights Watch said prisons and detention sites were also affected; the Tunisian League for Human Rights documented 20 deaths in prisons and detention facilities in conditions worsened by heat and water and power cuts.

President Kais Saied described outages on August 26 as deliberately planned sabotage, but authorities provided no evidence, Human Rights Watch said. Protests spread across all 24 governorates, with the Tunisian Social Observatory recording 1,101 actions in July and 1,093 in August. Human Rights Watch called on authorities to account publicly for grid failures, release transparent information including a death toll, and set out a plan to restore adequate electricity and water.