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Algeria: More doctors and teachers join pay strikes

March 27, 2018 at 2:28 pm

People come together to protest the poor conditions doctors face in Algiers, Algeria [SoumiaNinata/Twitter]

Algerian doctors are expanding a pay strike and teachers are resuming one, representatives said today, putting pressure on President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his prime minister at a time when resources are limited.

Medical students and specialist doctors in several hospitals today joined a strike by family doctors that has already been weakening health care in Algiers and other major cities for the last four months.

Protests over economic grievances are frequent in the country, but this year’s walkout is the largest since riots in 2011 that followed uprisings in the region as part of the Arab Spring.

The protests come at a time of political uncertainty — Bouteflika, 81, has barely appeared in public since suffering a stroke in 2013.

“Our colleagues the students and our colleagues the specialists have decided to show support by joining the strike,” Mohamed Toualeb, a spokesman for the strikers, told Reuters, without giving numbers.

“The government is unable to address our demands,” he said. “So we are calling on Bouteflika to find a solution to our problems.”

Read: Algeria struggling to solve economic crisis, say experts

Teachers plan to launch new a strike on 9 April, a labour union said, in disappointment that government promises after an earlier protest had not led to any concrete action.

“We will go for a strike of two days per week,” the teacher’s union said a statement.

Several weeks ago Bouteflika defused a three-month teachers’ strike that had shut down hundreds of schools by promising to find a solution.

“Ongoing strikes are evidence that the government has not found the formula to defuse social timebombs,” said political analyst Farid Ferrari.