Tunisian sailor, Shatawi Alia reclines on his fishing boat distressed because has not gone fishing in three months. But the 55-year-old is not willing to go home empty-handed. “What should I tell them when I return?” he says, looking absent-mindedly at the sea. “I have failed to provide food for my family for the third time in a row and I can’t find anything in the sea to sell.”

Tunisian sailor, Shatawi Alia reclines on his fishing boat distressed because has not gone fishing in three months. But the 55-year-old is not willing to go home empty-handed. “What should I tell them when I return?” he says, looking absent-mindedly at the sea. “I have failed to provide food for my family for the third time in a row and I can’t find anything in the sea to sell.”

Shatawi, who has worked in the fishing industry for over 40 years, recalls how the Gulf of Gabès used to be a paradise on earth before the Gabès chemical compound with 13 production units used mostly for producing fluoride was built in 1979.

In the years following the compound’s construction, Shatawi and 1700 other fishermen from Ghannouch, Gabès have warned against the growing sea contamination from the facility.

Residents of Ghannouch rely on fishing for their livelihoods and those fishermen have lost their means of sustenance due to the sea contamination in Gabès whose air and sea is highly polluted.

“My job used to generate good income, and because of it I was able to get married, build my own house and enjoy the pleasures and dignities of life” Shatawi recalls his happy days. “In the past, our nets would often fail to intake the abundant catch. We used to sell what we fish in the neighboring cities and make huge profits.”

Today Shatawi is afraid his electricity might be cut off at any moment because he can’t pay his bills.

Compromise with residents

Maher al-Zaidi, a chemical industry specialist who works in the compound’s phosphoric acid unit says that the compound has contaminated the sea by throwing 15,000 tons of phosphogypsum into it every day.

Maher adds that throwing phosphogypsum and other chemicals in the sea for more than four decades has hardened the sand making it more like coral in the seabed. This has damaged the seaweed, the best medium for fish reproduction, and forcing the fish to flee the area.

A member of the compound management team who wished to remain anonymous says that the government created a committee in 2011 to consider the demands of the local population. The committee paid two million Tunisian dinars (just under US $ 1 million) to affected fishermen in Ghannouch and Shatt al-Salam. He maintained that the compound’s management offered jobs to hundreds of local residents three years ago and contributed to the establishment of other micro enterprises in the region.

The management source however did not deny the high amounts of phosphogypsum thrown into the sea on a daily basis but said: “Where can we throw this stuff? We have proposed that it should be removed in containers to be buried underground in unpopulated areas but the civil society organisations fiercely rejected the proposal, fearing similar contamination to the underground drinking water.”

Collective emigration

Most of the fishermen from Shatawi’s area are threatening authorities to leave en masse  in their boats to Italy. “Life here now has a taste of death,” Shatawi says.

Poverty and hunger in Ghannouch are not limited to fishermen; more than 500 women working in the industry of nets and fishing equipment are starving as well.