Greater than 200 folks have been hospitalised in current weeks with respiratory points blamed on a neighborhood chemical plant.
Revealed On 21 Oct 2025
A normal strike and tens of hundreds of protesters have introduced the southern Tunisian metropolis of Gabes to a standstill as anger intensifies over a state-run chemical plant that residents blame for a pollution crisis.
Outlets, markets, colleges, and cafes shut down within the normal strike, halting financial exercise in coastal Gabes on Tuesday in response to a name by the highly effective UGTT labour union.
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Crowds held up banners condemning the environmental air pollution that has been attributable to the CGT phosphate plant for years and that critics say now threatens the well being of hundreds of residents.
Protesters marched by means of town chanting slogans similar to “Gabes desires to dwell” and “dismantle the polluting items”.
“All the pieces is closed in Gabes,” stated Saoussen Nouisser, the native consultant of UGTT. “We’re all offended on the catastrophic environmental scenario in our marginalised metropolis.”
Gabes, residence to just about 400,000 folks, has seen thousands take to the streets in current weeks, demanding the speedy shutdown of the plant.
The unrest has grown into one of many greatest checks going through President Kais Saied since he seized extraordinary powers in 2021.
Saied has described the scenario as an “environmental assassination” whereas blaming previous administrations for widespread most cancers and respiratory sickness and the destruction of native ecosystems.
Sami Al-Tahiri, the UGTT secretary-general, informed native media that the strike had “succeeded throughout all segments of the inhabitants”, including that Tunisians have been “ready to battle for his or her professional calls for” and maintain authorities accountable for failures throughout social, financial, and environmental fronts.
He stated the union was able to escalate with additional protests and mass rallies.
A long time-old drawback
Residents say the plant, opened in 1972 to supply fertilisers, is answerable for a surge in gasoline poisoning, most cancers instances and collapsing marine life, as radioactive waste and phosphogypsum are launched into the ocean and open air.
Greater than 200 folks have been admitted to hospital in current weeks for respiratory misery and publicity to gasoline, based on medical sources and NGOs.
“The plant has poisoned all the things – the bushes, the ocean, the folks,” native environmental activist Safouan Kbibieh informed Reuters. “Even Gabes’s pomegranates now style like smoke.”
Regardless of a 2017 authorities pledge to section out the plant, authorities this 12 months as a substitute moved to spice up manufacturing, calling phosphate a “pillar of the nationwide financial system”.
Authorities have stated “pressing measures” are underneath approach and have introduced in Chinese language corporations to assist comprise gasoline emissions and forestall additional dumping into the Mediterranean.
