The Our Planet program team visited the most polluted spot in Tunisia, which is exposed to environmental risks on a daily basis due to what the area’s residents call “toxic chocolate.”
More than four decades have passed since the environmental catastrophe that the Tunisian city of Gabes is experiencing. The city that pays the price for the presence of the Tunisian chemical complex within its surroundings. The city’s residents only dream of a normal life, in which they are not exposed to the risk of death that lurks at every step, with the continued pollution resulting from the phosphate refining units in the complex that was established in 1971 to produce phosphoric acid, which is used in the fertilizer industry.
Air pollution…a poison that kills marine life
Distinctive smell
Cities have a distinctive smell. As the poet Mahmoud Darwish describes, “Every city that is not known by its smell is unreliable.” The city of Gabes, located in the southeast of the country, has the smell of death and chemical fumes emanating from smokestacks. The voices demanding an end to pollution do not subside here. The stories of people who live a forced life intersect with a long list of diseases that kill them, as they claim.
The increase in diseases suffered by the population has contributed to the doubling of pollution rates in the region, including cancerous tumors caused by constant exposure to heavy metals, respiratory system disorders, skin diseases, and osteoporosis, while official statistics remain absent from quantifying the prevalence rates of these diseases.
Have you dashed the dreams of the residents of Gabès?
From a tourist and agricultural oasis par excellence to deserted gray beaches, this is how the Gabes Oasis appeared, which was nominated years ago for the UNESCO World Natural Heritage List, due to the richness of the natural and ecological environments it contains. The beaches, which were once popular with vacationers and tourists, have taken a renewed position in officials’ warnings about dangerous areas for landing and swimming. The most recent of which was the Tunisian Ministry of Health’s warnings during the last summer season, according to the results of health monitoring activities for water quality completed during the period of 2023.
On the shore of peace, poisoned by industrial waste, tragedy unfolds. “Phosphogypsum” is the password, as the industrial units of the complex throw about 13 tons of “phosphate gypsum” into the sea every day without treatment, according to estimates, which is a substance that poses a danger to the environment and the health of the population. Fishermen in Gabes are monitoring the extent of the deterioration that has occurred in the biodiversity of the marine environment, which has deprived them of the livelihoods and sources of livelihood they depend on, with the decline of fish stocks significantly and the death of marine organisms in the polluted bay.
The environmental and economic damage resulting from pollution extends to agricultural production, which has declined dramatically, with the oasis suffering from a great scarcity of water resources drained by the chemical complex, which has caused thirst and drying out of the palm forests and pomegranate trees that filled the oasis years ago. According to a World Bank report, traditional Tunisian oases, especially the Gabès Oasis, are at risk of environmental degradation, which has contributed to increasing unemployment rates despite it being one of the most important habitats of rich biodiversity in the country.
More than 50 years waiting for solutions
The efforts made by the local community and environmental activists in the state are continuing to curb the environmental disaster. The violations that are plaguing the state ignore the Tunisian Constitution, as the articles of the Constitution that was approved in 2014 emphasize the environmental rights of citizens, with an emphasis on the state guaranteeing the right to a healthy and balanced environment, and providing the means to eliminate environmental pollution.
While several reports and studies confirm the danger of pouring phosphogypsum into seas and waterways, including reports from the US Environmental Protection Agency that indicate that phosphogypsum contains a number of heavy elements and radioactive materials, including uranium and radium. Disposing and treating this waste requires safe procedures that take into account biosafety standards.
The people cling to any glimmer of hope on the horizon for a solution to the crisis, but this hope quickly dissipates with government procrastination, which only results in more procrastination. Many projects that were announced to find radical solutions to eliminate pollution are still languishing in the drawers. Officials in Gabès justify the delay in these projects by the high financial cost and the old technologies used in the chemical complex units, in which modern technologies do not work for the safe treatment of waste and purification of chemical fumes from smokestacks.
2023-09-20 13:22:38
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