After yesterday’s incident in the village of Slupcane, where locals chased out teams from EVN Macedonia trying to disconnect customers who refuse to pay for electricity, today much of the village of Studenicani near Skopje was left without power. The reason is that the Idrizi family has cordoned off streets that lead to a site of defect in the relay network and they are not allowing EVN teams to make necessary repairs.

The area has been blocked off for a long period of time, and 100 households are effectively held hostage, EVN Macedonia said.

Macedonia has a chronic problem with very low collection for electricity bills, particularly in majority Albanian villages, and this loss is redistributed to the other customers.