SANA’A, July 11 —  Cleaning workers resumed their duties Wednesday after a six-day sit-in throughout Yemeni governorates, during which they demanded official employment rights as well as health and financial allowances.

Sana’a’s streets were littered with garbage from the trash accumulation.

The workers ended the sit-ins after a series of meetings between newly appointed Secretary of the Capital Abdul-Qader Ali Helal and the chairmen relevant departments of the cleaning workers sit-in.

On Tuesday, the secretary of the capital and the head of the Cleaning Workers Syndicate agreed to lift the sit-in only for two weeks until the procedures of employing the workers executed.

“If the workers won’t be officially employed within two weeks, we will continue our sit-in” Mohammed Al-Marzooki said.

On Monday, the secretary of the capital declared in a meeting that garbage would be taken out within two days.  

Basheer Al-Radhi, the secretary general of the Workers Syndicate at the Environmental Improvement Fund said the result of the meetings was a promise to officially hire workers and to make specific committees to convince cleaning workers to lift the sit-in and return to work.

Al-Marzooki said workers rejected the new decisions and remain determined to be officially hired to improve standards of living.

“We demand that the cabinet decision of hiring all the workers to be fulfilled,” he said.


Workers under attack

Samir Hamza, head of the Agriculture Cleaning Workers Syndicate, said security forces attacked them while they protested in front of the southern gate of the municipality compound in Sana'a.

He said committees threatened force if they didn’t end the sit-in.

The secretary of the capital has promised to provide 21,000 jobs for the workers, while there are 30,000 total cleaners in Yemen, according to Al-Marzooki.

“The rest of the 9,000 cleaning workers will be hired according to the priority,” he said.