Tunisia Struggling With Drought
- Bouazza Ben Bouazza & Mehdi El Alem
- Sep 30, 2016
- 1 min read
Struggling with extremism and economic woes, Tunisia now faces another menace: persistent drought across several regions that is creating new social tensions and threatening farming, a pillar of the economy.
Farmland is too parched to cultivate crops and rural protesters have tried disrupting water supplies to the capital, while one legislator is calling for a "thirst revolt."
A lack of rain, combined with years of bad resource management, has left reservoirs and dams at exceptionally low levels that could lead to a "catastrophic situation," said Saad Seddik, who was agriculture minister until last month.
With municipal water supplies periodically cut off, residents of some towns are walking several kilometers (miles) to fetch water from public fountains, loading up donkeys with water canisters — if there's any left.
Paolo Macorig
Comments