Protesters close oil pump in southern Tunisia

Around 100 people from the city of Douz in the province of Kebili, 500 kilometres south of Tunis, yesterday closed a number of oil and gas pipelines in protest against the government’s failure to meet their demands for employment.

“We began the protests in parallel with the youth in Tataouine province but the authorities rushed to negotiate with them and ignored us,” the protesters’ spokesman, Fakhir Al-Ajmi, told the Anadolu Agency.

“Today we gave the government 48 hours to meet our demands, or we will carry out other protests,” he added.

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The protesters demand a share in oil revenues extracted from the province and create jobs for 4,000 people from Kebili province and pump $49 million to local development fund.

Earlier in mid-June, youth in the Tataouine province reached a final agreement with the Tunisian government to restart the pumping station in Kamour in exchange for breaking the sit-in that had lasted for several weeks.

The agreement provided to create jobs for 2,500 unemployed persons in a state- owned company and 1,500 unemployed persons in international oil companies operating in the country in addition to the allocation of $35 million annually, for the development of the province.