Curfew declared in Madagascar capital

Protesters hold a Madagascar flag while looking at police officers as they demonstrate yesterday against repeated water and electricity outages in Antananarivo. – AFP

Authorities in Madagascar have imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew in the capital, after protests over frequent power outages and water shortages turned violent, according to a top security official.

Police fired teargas to disperse the thousands of mostly youth protesters who were marching and carrying placards, in Antananarivo, the capital, according to a Reuters witness.

The demonstrators were denouncing the government and demanding restoration of reliable water and electricity across the country.

“There are unfortunately individuals taking advantage of the situation to destroy other people’s property,” General Angelo Ravelonarivo, who heads a joint security body that includes the police and the military, said in a statement he read on privately owned Real TV late yesterday.

To protect “the population and their belongings”, the security forces decided to impose a curfew from 7pm to 5am “until public order is restored”, the statement said.

Madagascar, an island nation in the Indian Ocean, is mired in poverty, and some people blame the government of President Andry Rajoelina, who was re-elected in 2023, for not improving conditions.

During the protests earlier yesterday, a large shopping mall in the capital was looted and then burned, and the homes of two lawmakers were looted and vandalised, according to the Reuters witness.

The protesters, who defied an earlier police ban on the demonstration, marched while chanting: “We need water, we need electricity.”

They waved banners reading “Let us make our rights heard”, “Stop a life of yellow jerrycans and darkness” and “We don’t want trouble, we just want our rights”.

Protesters also waved the viral pirate flag – a straw-hatted skull and crossbones from the Japanese manga and anime series *One Piece – which has become a symbol adopted by anti-establishment youth movements in countries like Indonesia and Nepal.

After the protests were dispersed, they later spread into various neighbourhoods of the capital.

A security forces spokesperson, Zafisambatra Ravoavy, could not be reached for comment.

On Wednesday, the national police chief, Jean Herbert Andriantahiana Rakotomalala, warned that security forces would “take firm preventive… measures against those tempted to break the law”.