Tunisia Police Killed In Clashes With Protesters Over Jobs
KABUL: (MEP) A Tunisian policeman was killed after clashes erupted between security forces and protesters in at least four separate towns on Wednesday, residents and officials said.
The demonstrators demanded employment just days after a young jobless man committed suicide.
The protests erupted in Kasserine, where the young man killed himself, apparently over the lack of job opportunities, residents said, and later spread to three other towns or cities in the country’s impoverished central, southern region.
The death and protests evoked memories of Tunisia’s 2011 “Arab Spring” uprising that broke out when a struggling young market vendor committed suicide, unleashing a wave of anger that forced longtime leader Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali to flee and inspired protests across the Arab world.
Police fired clouds of tear gas after protesters tried to storm a police station in Kasserine, a Reuters witness said. Burning tyres blocked streets as police chased down groups of protesters.
“It’s been seven years of no work for me. We’re sick of just promises. We won’t go back to our homes until we get something concrete this time. … We just want to live with dignity,” said Samir, 30.
The Interior Ministry later announced a night-time curfew in Kasserine as a preventative measure. But clashes continued into the night there and spread to the other cities of Tahla, Fernana, Meknasi, according to TAP state news agency.
At least one policeman was killed in Feriana after he was attacked by protesters, a spokesman for the Interior Ministry said.
Seeking to calm protests, President Beji Caid Essebsi’s government announced on Wednesday it would seek to hire more than 6,000 young unemployed people from Kasserine, and start construction projects in the region.
