A general strike and protest rally was held today in a central Tunisian city following the death of a protester by tear gas during a demonstration against the reopening of a landfill.
Abderazek Laseheb, 35, died Tuesday morning in Agareb, a town in Sfax province, when police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd trying to prevent a landfill from reopening.
The prosecutor’s office launched an investigation to determine the causes of death of the 35-year-old. For its part, the Tunisian Interior Ministry announced that it had succumbed to a health problem from which it had nothing to do with the dispersal of the demonstration.
The general strike, in which most private and public sector workers took part, was followed by a call from the powerful central UGTT union to denounce the “brutal intervention of the security forces” against the protesters.
At the same time, thousands of people took part in a march to protest the violence of the security forces and to demand the closure of the landfill.
Strong police forces prevented the protesters from reaching the landfill, reusing tear gas.
Demonstrations have been taking place in the province of Sfax in recent weeks – where the city of the same name is located, Tunisia’s second largest and most important economic pole – due to garbage flooding the streets and sidewalks and threatening the health of residents.
The province’s central landfill, located in Agareb, was closed in late September after pressure from residents who complained it was already full and protested the dumping of chemicals, at a time when the landfill was designed exclusively for household waste.
The municipalities of the area then refused to collect the garbage, estimating that the state did not find tangible solutions to the problem of waste management.
Authorities decided to reopen the landfill on Monday, sparking a new wave of protests.
The problems with waste management in Tunisia are chronic. Most of the 2.5 million tonnes of rubbish collected each year are transported to landfills, where they are neither buried nor incinerated, and only a very small percentage of it is recycled.
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Source From: Capital
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