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GABES, Tunisia: Several thousand people rallied in southern Tunisia on Wednesday, calling for the closure of an aging chemicals factory which locals have blamed for a host of poisonings and health issues.
As the procession reached the vicinity of the vast factory of the Tunisian Chemical Group, a public company, police fired large amounts of tear gas. Hundreds of people retreated, but groups of young people remained shouting their anger, while several individuals fainted, according to an AFP correspondent on site.
In recent weeks scores of people have been hospitalized in the city of Gabes, with residents pointing the finger at the potentially cancer-causing waste from a phosphate processing plant nearby.
“This has to stop. My three kids and I are asthmatic, my husband and my mother died from cancer as a result” of the plant, 52-year-old protester Lamia Ben Mohamed told AFP.
“We want to breathe,” the protesters chanted, while dozens of motorcycles at the head of the rally honked their horns.

According to an AFP journalist at the scene and police sources, the crowd’s size began at around 2,000 people before growing to several thousand.
Organized by the Stop Pollution collective, the rally demanded the shuttering of the aging fertilizer plant, whose discharges into the Mediterranean Sea have long sown discontent among Gabes residents.
They blame the plant for collapsed fishing stocks, beach pollution, respiratory diseases and cancer.
That outcry has intensified in the past month. The rally comes a day after 122 people had to be treated or hospitalized for cases blamed on the plant, according to a local official with knowledge of the figures.
Marwa Salah, 33, a cardiologist at Gabes Regional Hospital, said she wanted to “live without the pollution from the complex that has brought us nothing.”
Wrapped in the Tunisian flag or holding yellow banners bearing a skull, protesters carried signs reading “Stop genocide,” “Gabes without oxygen,” and “The complex is killing us under the state’s watch.”
According to Slah Ben Hamed, regional leader of the UGTT union, the recent waves of poisoning were caused by “outdated equipment” and “gas leaks.”
Fertilizer production requires treating phosphates with sulfuric acid and ammonia.
Although the Tunisian state had promised in 2017 to begin the plant’s gradual closure, authorities earlier this year said they would ramp up production instead.
Experts have cast doubt on the possibility of cleaning up a complex first inaugurated in 1972.
 

NEW YORK CITY: The World Food Programme warned on Wednesday that a sharp decrease in funding is pushing food aid operations in crisis-hit countries, including Gaza, Sudan and Yemen, toward collapse, risking famine among millions of people already on the brink of starvation.

In a report titled “A Lifeline at Risk,” WFP officials said unprecedented funding shortfalls are forcing the agency to slash rations, suspend vital food distributions, and cut entire populations off from aid in six of the world’s most fragile places: Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Somalia and Afghanistan.

“Across these six countries, we’re seeing people completely cut off from assistance,” said Ross Smith, director of emergency preparedness and response.

“These are the most vulnerable, living in the most fragile settings. We are at a breaking point.”

Jean-Martin Bauer, the organization’s director of food security and nutrition analysis, joined Smith in warning that projections suggest 13.7 million people will fall into emergency levels of hunger this year alone as a direct result of funding cuts.

“This isn’t theoretical,” Bauer. “These are mothers and children being turned away from clinics. This is the last lifeline being severed.

“We are looking at two concurrent famines for the first time in WFP’s history, in Gaza and Sudan, and the number of people facing famine-like conditions has doubled in just two years.”

According to the WFP, 1.4 million people in five places — Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Mali and Yemen — are facing catastrophic levels of food insecurity ranked by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification system as Phase 5; this denotes the worst possible situation, or famine-like conditions.

In Gaza, the WFP warned, access restrictions and funding gaps could leave vast swaths of the population without food in the coming weeks.

The situation in Sudan, described by the organization as the world’s largest humanitarian crisis, is equally alarming. Although the WFP provided 4.1 million people with aid in August, it said it has the capacity to reach nearly double that number but lacks the resources to do so.

“Unless urgent funding is secured, we will have to reduce our footprint in Sudan and many other places,” Smith said.

Other countries causing great concern include Afghanistan, where the WFP said it can currently assist less than 10 percent of the more than 10 million people facing acute food insecurity. Winter assistance is expected to reach less than 8 percent of those in need.

In South Sudan, record flooding has displaced populations, but funding shortfalls have forced the organization to scale down large-scale food-aid programs to a “famine-prevention” model that targets only the most critical areas.

In Somalia, emergency food assistance has been cut by 75 percent compared with a year ago, with only 350,000 people targeted for help in November.

In Haiti, funding shortfalls have forced the suspension of efforts to provide hot meals for displaced communities, and left the country unprepared for the ongoing hurricane season.

Globally, 319 million people are affected by acute food insecurity, and 44 million are already at emergency levels of hunger. WFP officials said the situation is exacerbated by a dangerous narrative that suggests some crises, such as the situations in Afghanistan or Haiti, are no longer emergencies.

“There’s a real risk that the world turns away, just as needs reach their peak,” Bauer said, warning that the erosion of humanitarian infrastructure and data systems could have long-term consequences.

“The GPS of the humanitarian system — our data and analytics — is now also under threat. Without it, we’re flying blind,” he added.

The WFP expects a 40 percent reduction in its assistance levels this year, with further cuts possible in 2026 unless donors urgently step in to help.

“Famine is not inevitable,” said Bauer. “But without action, it is becoming increasingly likely.”