TUNIS, Tunisia — Protests that had paralyzed all extracting production and transport activities March 9 at the Gafsa Phosphate Company (CPG), the main state operator in Tunisia, have been dispersed and production has resumed.

Since Jan. 20, large protests and sit-ins were staged in phosphate-producing cities, including in Redeyef, Moulares, Metlaoui and Mdhila, in the Gafsa governorate mining basin in the southwest of the country. According to the governmental institution Statistiques Tunisie, the unemployment rate in this province is as high as 28.8%.

Hundreds of unemployed youths from the region who participated in the staffing competition organized by the CPG on Aug. 1, 2016, blocked the roads leading to the phosphate mines and set up tents at CPG headquarters. They voiced their disagreement with what they said was a corrupt and nontransparent staffing competition that led to the employment of 1,700 operational employees, out of a total of 32,000 applicants. The competition's results were announced in four batches, the last of which was on Jan. 20.

Phosphate production in the mining basin has decreased for seven years now. The central director of information systems and organizations at Groupe Chimique Tunisien, Hatem Trigui, told the privately owned Mosaique FM radio station Feb. 23, “In the past, Tunisia ranked among the world's top three countries in the production of phosphate, but it is now almost uncatalogued.”