After more than forty days of garbage accumulated in the streets of Sfax, the capital of the south, on Monday, November 2, 2021, the President of the Republic issued a decision to open an investigation against persons unknown to find out the reasons behind the worsening environmental conditions in the governorate, calling on the Minister of Interior to intervene immediately and urgently to resolve the crisis.
Sfax, Tunisia’s Industrial Artery, is Facing Death
The state of Sfax, the second largest city in Tunisia, with a population of more than one million inhabitants, has suffered during the past few weeks from the accumulation of waste, which has caused foul odors to exacerbate in the city’s streets in the absence of any initiative from the country’s appointed authorities to find solutions to get out of the crisis quickly.
In the same context, the spokesperson for the Sfax Courts, Mourad Turki, stated that an investigation had been opened into the circumstances of not transporting the waste that had accumulated for more than a month, stressing that the investigation would include all parties involved in the waste file and its disposal.
The President of the Republic held parties working to inflame the social conditions in the country responsible for the deteriorating environmental situation in Sfax, stressing that the environmental situation will not be limited to the governorate, but will extend to the capital if everyone who caused the environmental disaster is not deterred.
The exacerbation of environmental conditions in Sfax is due to the closure of the “Akareb” dump after protests against the dumping of industrial waste at the site designated for household waste.
Temporary Solutions
During a visit to the governorate of Sfax on October 21, 2021, the Minister of Environment, Leila Chikhaoui, had proposed the establishment of new places to temporarily store waste away from residential areas.
Tunisia witnessed an environmental catastrophe in early 2020 related to the shipment of hundreds of waste containers from Italy, containing household waste, which are imported by illegal methods.
