The population of Sfax, Tunisia’s second largest city, For two months now, trash cans have been piling up in the streets. Public landfills are saturated. What raises popular anger, unprecedented in the country.
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It has been two months since the inhabitants of Sfax – second city in Tunisia – see garbage invading their streets. As landfills are overcrowded, garbage cans are not collected. This obviously poses serious health problems. Doctors warn: serious diseases appear.
You should know that in Tunisia, we do not treat waste, we bury it. It is an ecological and human disaster. Until now, the waste from Sfax was taken to the small town of Agareb. The saturated public landfill was to close at the end of the year. The authorities, for lack of anything better, wanted to enlarge it. Result: the inhabitants, who are fed up with the pollution that this landfill generates, have taken to the streets.
Foued Lachehab, thehe mayor of Agareb is at his wit’s end. The anger of the inhabitants is legitimate according to him. But not for the police who responded with repression. A youngster has died. The inhabitants as well as the mayor affirm that it is the surge of gas which killed this young demonstrator. The Interior Ministry denies. “How did the president order a forcible intervention? How?”, laments the mayor who supports the population especially as his daughter suffers from pollution linked to the landfill. “We recorded diseases that we had never seen before. For example, viral diseases and cancerous diseases “, he specifies.
My daughter is 3 years old. She constantly needs oxygen. It’s a disaster.
Foued Lachehab, mayor of Agarebto franceinfo
The confidence of the inhabitants in Kais Saied, the Tunisian president who monopolizes practically all the capacities since this summer has crumbled. “There is a dead man… He is responsible!”, hammers a resident. The latter adds that in addition to this death, we must count all those who fall ill or die from diseases caused by the rubbish dump.
Doctors mention a very high number of cancer and respiratory diseases. This week, the authorities assured that they had found the solution to rid Sfax of its trash by creating a new landfill in another small locality. In short, shift the problem. The municipal council of the city concerned refuses. The waste crisis is becoming spectacular. Sfax continues to threaten a general strike.