Yemen’s STC Escalates Rhetoric, Calls for Mass Peaceful Protests Over Deteriorating Living Conditions
Aden – The Southern Transitional Council (STC) has intensified its rhetoric against worsening living and service conditions in southern governorates, urging the people of the South to take to the streets in wide-scale peaceful demonstrations to reject the escalating crises and deliver a clear political message on national rights and the southern cause.
In a statement issued Tuesday evening and addressed to the southern public, the STC said citizens are facing what it described as “catastrophic” living, economic, and service conditions, amid the continued collapse of basic services, the depreciation of the local currency, soaring prices, and the suspension of salary payments — factors that have compounded the suffering of residents to unprecedented levels.
The statement stressed that the situation in southern governorates is no longer a matter of temporary administrative or economic imbalances, but rather evidence of failed policies imposed on the South and the persistence of what it called a mentality of tutelage, subjugation, and collective punishment.
The STC emphasized that the southern people, who have made great sacrifices in defense of their national rights, cannot accept the continuation of this reality or remain silent in the face of what it described as policies of starvation and impoverishment. It underlined that basic services, electricity, water, salaries, and livelihood stability are inherent rights of citizens, not privileges to be granted or withheld based on political calculations.
According to the statement, past years have proven that ignoring the southern cause and attempting to circumvent popular will have only led to further complications and crises. It accused unnamed parties of exploiting citizens’ suffering as a political bargaining chip aimed at influencing southerners’ stance on their national cause.
The STC clarified that the current struggle is not limited to service and livelihood demands, but is fundamentally about the rights, dignity, sovereignty, and political future of the southern people. It asserted that the southern cause extends beyond services and salaries to encompass the right of southerners to restore their state, identity, and political decision-making.
The Council called on the southern masses in Aden and other governorates to gather and march peacefully in squares and public arenas, to express their rejection of the prevailing conditions and to send a message both domestically and internationally that the southern people will not accept the continuation of their suffering or the transformation of their basic rights into tools of extortion and political bargaining.
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