How a byproduct from Tunisia’s fertiliser industry has brought environmental disaster to an ecologically crucial stretch of its southern coastline—and sparked a protest movement to try to stop it
On 4 March 2025, Tunisia’s President Saied received the Minister of Industry at the Presidential Palace in Carthage.
Within twenty-four hours, a ministerial council was convened in haste to make a chilling decision and one that nearly escaped public notice: phosphogypsum, a toxic by-product spewing from the chemical plant in the coastal city of Gabès, was struck from the official list of hazardous substances. In a single swift move, the government and the president broke their repeated promises to the people of Gabès to stop the slow trail of death emanating from the polluting factories within the chemical industrial complex.
Gabès
قابس in Arabic
