BEIRUT - Lebanon's bloody fight with Islamist militants in a northern refugee camp has caused severe power shortages across the country with ships unable to deliver oil to a nearby power plant, energy officials said on Tuesday.

Although the country for years has experienced power outages, the battles at the Nahr al-Bared camp have made matters worse with Lebanese homes not equipped with generators increasingly plunged into darkness for hours on end.

Tempers are beginning to flare as a result, with residents taking to the streets for the past two nights and burning tyres in a Shi'a neighbourhood south of the capital Beirut.

Antoine Constantine, an adviser to interim Energy Minister Mohammad Safadi, told AFP that the outages were related to the security situation at Nahr al-Bared, where the army since May 20 has been fighting Islamist militants holed up inside the camp located along the Mediterranean.

Ships transporting diesel and fuel oil for the Deir Ammar power plant, near the camp, have been ordered not to moor in the area for security reasons and are being diverted to other ports in Lebanon.

Some of the oil is then being transported by truck to Deir Ammar.

"We have a case of force majeure and it's out of our hands," Constantine said. "This has nothing to do with politics, it has to do with security."

Safadi in a statement said the government was also being hampered in its efforts to supply electricity by the fact that the Jiyeh power plant south of Beirut was still not fully operational a year after it was bombed by Israel in its war with the militant group Hezbollah.

He said neighbouring Syria has meanwhile not been able to continue supplying Lebanon with power at the same rate because of "technical reasons".

Roger Mouracade, representative in Lebanon for P & I Clubs, which provides maritime insurance, said as long as the Nahr al-Bared battles continue, shipping companies could not take the risk of unloading fuel in the area.

"If one rocket hits a vessel, we will not only have a disaster on the human level but also an ecological disaster," he told AFP. "As long as there is the slightest risk, there will be no ships calling at Deir Ammar."

He said four vessels transporting fuel to Deir Ammar have been diverted since the beginning of the standoff at Nahr al-Bared and another ship was headed to the region this week.

Lebanon for years has suffered from power outages, forcing residents to invest in generators or to purchase electricity from private individuals with generators. -AFP