GABES, Tunisia: Workers in the southern Tunisian city of Gabes launched a general strike on Tuesday following weeks of protest over a chemical factory residents blame for a spike in serious health issues.
Thousands have recently rallied in the city of some 400,000 inhabitants to demand the closure of a state-run phosphate processing plant which they say is behind a rise in gas poisonings after it ramped up production.
The plant, inaugurated in 1972, processes phosphate to make fertilizers, and some of the gases and waste it discharges into the open air and Mediterranean are radioactive and can cause cancer, researchers have found.
“Everything is closed in Gabes,” said Saoussen Nouisser, a local representative of Tunisia’s main labor union, UGTT, which called the general strike.
“We’re all angry at the catastrophic environmental situation in our marginalized city,” she told AFP.
Over 200 people have been hospitalized in recent weeks for respiratory distress and gas poisoning, according to authorities and NGOs.
Videos circulated online of children seemingly having breathing issues last week pushed thousands to rally in the coastal city.
Police have used tear gas to disperse the crowd at some demonstrations, with the city seeing clashes between residents and security forces sometimes at night.
Dozens were arrested over the weekend.
National Guard spokesman Houcem Eddine Jebabli told local media that protesters have used “over 800 Molotov cocktails” targeting security forces, adding there were cases of “robbery and looting.”
In 2017, the Tunisian government promised to gradually shut down the factory, but earlier this year authorities said they would instead ramp up production at the plant.
President Kais Saied had long vowed to revive the sector hindered by unrest and underinvestment, calling phosphate a “pillar of the national economy.”
Authorities have said “urgent measures” were underway to address pollution in Gabes as the government called on Chinese companies to help manage the plant’s waste.
Equipment Minister Salah Zouari said they would help “control gas emissions” and “prevent the discharge of phosphogypsum into the sea.”
The solid waste contains radioactive elements, which also impact soil quality and groundwater.