Frustration over the constant blackouts escalated in the municipality of Dzemul, Yucatán, where a group of residents detained and tied a Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) worker to a pole, demanding quality service.
According to witness accounts, upon noticing the employee’s presence, residents approached him to complain that they had been without power for 12 hours, had lost food, and had to endure high temperatures for half a day.
Tensions later erupted when power company personnel, who had come to check on a transformer fault, informed them that the repair would be postponed until the following day.
This news, coupled with the recurring outages the community reported suffering for years, sparked anger among more than 30 people who decided to take “justice” into their own hands to press for an immediate solution.
Municipal Police officers arrived at the scene to mediate the conflict and negotiate the employee’s release. However, the protesters remained firm in their position and warned that they would not release him until service was restored.
A video circulated in which an officer was seen complaining about the way the citizens of the northern region of the state of Yucatán were protesting.
“This is not the way you’re doing it!” he told them.
For his part, the worker attempted to reason with the protesters, warning that he was not responsible for the blackouts and was only carrying out his duties.
When the CFE employee was detained in Dzemul, a crew from the commission arrived to negotiate and expedite the work, but he was released with the help of the local police.
Among the residents’ demands was a plan to modernize the electrical grid to guarantee a stable supply, and they requested the intervention of Profeco to review the collection of rates.
Source: reforma
