Witnesses said that the Tunisian police fired tear gas today, Friday, to disperse protesters in Gerges in the south of the country, who tried to reach the island of Djerba, where the leaders of the French -speaking countries will hold a summit at the beginning of the week.
Gerges, who has been linked to Djerba, has been invaded for weeks for the Tunisian state’s response to the death of local residents in the sinking of migrants.
Tunisian President Qais Said receives French President Emmanuel Macron and other leaders in Djerba, on Saturday and Sunday, after the meeting of the foreign ministers of these countries on the island later today, Friday.
“We wanted to protest and communicate our voices in Djerba, but the response of the power by force and our oppression . ..
We wanted to communicate our voice to ask to know the fate of our children,” said Salim Zraidat, one of the protesters and the father of a young man who was lost in a migrant boat. He continued that the police fired the gas heavily and fell several injuries.
And Zeridat is among a group of relatives of people from the Gerges region who drowned weeks ago in incidents of crashing of many boats that migrants are traveling in an effort to cross the Mediterranean to Europe.
“What happened is a scandal . . . they fired gas and there are attacks on everyone, including women,” said Ghassan Bourguiba, another protester.
The demonstrators began protesting in Gerges, as they considered to be ignored by the government for their tragedy and their failure to send boats to search for bodies and determine the identity of those that were found before the burial.
A spokesman for the Tunisian Ministry of the Interior said he had no details or comment on Friday’s protest or the police deal with him..
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