Syrian state television said electricity was slowly coming back online in parts of the country after the widespread blackout began early Thursday afternoon.
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An Electricity Ministry source said power is gradually returning to Syrian areas after the cause of outage was found, “Armenpress” reports, citing SANA agency. “Engineers and technicians are working on finding out why this sudden power cut happened in order to fix it promptly and restore electricity in the next few hours”.
State media also reported that Internet services were partially disrupted. “However, nationwide blackouts are rare”.
The country has suffered several power cuts during the course of the ongoing five-year civil conflict at an estimated cost of $3.7 billion. The Syrian government under President Bashar al-Assad has previously blamed blackouts on rebel attacks, while the United Nations has said that electricity has been restricted as a weapon of war.
A new truce between major powers fighting in the region that started on Saturday was holding but fragile.
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The UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said on Thursday that the deal had “greatly reduced” violence in the country, though it does not include the Islamic State and Nusra Front groups, both of which the UN considers terrorist organisations.
