Tunisian man dead after self-immolating in protest against police

A young Tunisian man died after self-immolating in an act of protest against the police in the central region of Kairouan, his family said Friday.

Yassine Selmi, a 22-year-old construction worker, died Thursday in a hospital in Tunis, two days after setting himself on fire in front of a police station, his father Mansour Selmi said.

He was attempting to “resolve a fight between two people and police officers near a police station” when the officers threatened to arrest him in Bou Hajla, a small town in Kairouan, said his father.

The young man later came back to the police station with a gasoline container and “set himself on fire in protest” over the police’s threats, the father added.

He said he would seek justice for his son’s death.

Tunisia has seen large numbers of people set themselves alight since the death of street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi, whose self-immolation in late 2010 sparked the Arab Spring and led to the ousting of former President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

Many of the cases have been concentrated in non-coastal areas that are the hardest hit by Tunisia’s economic crisis.

The North African country’s debt currently hovers around 80 percent of its GDP, with a yearly inflation averaging up to 10 percent and an unemployment rate of 40 percent among its youth.

The latest incident came just days after another street vendor in the coastal city of Sfax set herself on fire after a dispute with the police.

Local media said the woman, who was originally from Kairouan, was taken to a hospital with severe burns.

The wider Kairouan region tops national rankings in unemployment, illiteracy and suicides.

It recorded 26 out of the nation’s 147 documented and attempted suicides in 2023, according to the non-government group FTDES.