Fifty-year-old Tayyeb Ben Salem was as a nurse, so he was one of the first to attend to injured protestors who gathered in Siliana on November 27, 2012. The organized demonstration of 5,000 people demanded more jobs and economic development in the economically depressed governorate, which is one of Tunisia’s poorest. Security forces confronted thousands of protesters with rubber and lead birdshot ammunition, which led to the injury of over 200 people, according to Human Rights Watch. 

Fifty-year-old Tayyeb Ben Salem was as a nurse, so he was one of the first to attend to injured protestors who gathered in Siliana on November 27, 2012. The organized demonstration of 5,000 people demanded more jobs and economic development in the economically depressed governorate, which is one of Tunisia’s poorest. Security forces confronted thousands of protesters with rubber and lead birdshot ammunition, which led to the injury of over 200 people, according to Human Rights Watch. 

“I was standing in front of my house preparing my nursing kit to help the injured people.  I practiced this profession for 25 years and I felt I might be needed on that day.  I saw the security forces car coming towards the place where I was standing together with some of the injured persons and so I headed towards the door of my house to open it and go in, but the bullets were faster than me,” Ben Salem remembered. 

An exploding bullet hit Ben Salem—68 pieces of the bullet penetrated his back, his buttocks and legs. He was immediately taken to Siliana Hospital but the civil protection forces and the doctor who was directly responsible for his case were not able to remove the pieces of the bullets from his body because they had settled deeply into the tissue. Removing the remaining bullet pieces would have risked paralyzing Ben Salem for the rest of his life. 

Today, he is no longer able to work and he experiences pain when he tries to stand up or carry something heavy.

“I am always afraid to wake up and find myself unable to move. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life on a wheelchair,” he said.  His marriage also suffered from his injury as Ben Salem can no longer have sexual intercourse. He is now divorced.

He claimed that government authorities have only paid attention to people who suffered from eye injuries but those who were injured in other parts of their bodies were not being taken care of as carefully. “The workers’ union, the biggest trade union in the country, as well as civil society organizations do not seem to search for solutions for these patients.”

“I can’t ask anyone for help.  If my financial conditions were better, I wouldn’t seek the help of any person.  I would go to a specialized center to make the needed medical tests and to be able to know why I am now like this.”