Tunisia’s Gabes city on general strike over factory pollution

A wide onslaught and tens of thousands of protesters brought the confederate Tunisian metropolis of Gabes to a standstill, backing demands for the closure of a authorities chemic works blamed for a contamination crisis.

Shops, markets and schools unopen down connected Tuesday during the strike, halting economical enactment successful coastal Gabes successful effect to a telephone by Tunisia’s main commercialized union, the UGTT.

Crowds held up banners condemning the biology contamination caused by the CGT phosphate works implicit the years, which critics accidental present threatens the wellness of thousands of residents.

Protesters marched done the city, chanting slogans specified arsenic “Gabes wants to live” and “dismantle the polluting units”.

Earlier this month, President Kais Saied said Gabes was suffering an “environmental assassination” owed to what helium called transgression argumentation choices by erstwhile authorities, blaming them for wide crab and respiratory illness, arsenic good arsenic the demolition of section ecosystems.

Health Minister Mustapha Ferjani said connected Monday that the authorities would physique a crab infirmary successful Gabes to woody with rising cases, but gave nary timeline.

In 2017, the Tunisian authorities promised to gradually unopen down the factory. However, earlier this year, authorities said they would alternatively ramp up accumulation astatine the plant.

Environmental groups person warned that marine beingness has been severely affected, with section fishermen reporting a melodramatic diminution successful food stocks implicit the past decade, impacting a captious root of income for galore successful the region.