Several people gathered in front of Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Sunday to urge the federal government to send aid to the Tunisian people, affected by an explosion of COVID-19 cases for weeks.
Participants in the event, members of the Tunisian diaspora, are worried about their loved ones who have difficulty accessing vaccination against COVID-19.
Vaccines are needed immediately in Tunisia. We would like to have two to three million vaccines to stop the great wave which is killing the Tunisians, said one of them, Badis Koubakji.
With figures never reached since March 2020, the Tunisian Ministry of Health recently described the situation as “catastrophic”. There is even talk of a collapse in the country’s hospital capacity.
There are vulnerable people and our families are going through a period of stress and worry, Nader Nasrallah, president of the Association of the Tunisian Community in Canada, told the Ottawa rally. He insisted that young people are also hit hard by COVID-19, with the current surge in cases.
Many are worried about their relatives who are in Tunisia.
We have exhausted all our recourse in Tunisia in the face of the government which is managing the situation badly. It is the result of a decade of bad governance, he added.
Another participant in the event, Abdelari Nasri, said he was shocked by recent photos that bear witness to the health crisis in Tunisia.
These are photos where we saw a Tunisian fall to the ground at the edge of the hospital because he lacked oxygen. He is dead, he stressed.
The situation is rendered humanitarian. We want to save our people.
A quote from Abdelari Nasri, participating in a rally in support of Tunisia
He implores the government of Justin Trudeau to send vaccines to Tunisia, and quickly.
Canada pledged, at the end of the G7 Summit in June, to give vulnerable countries 100 million doses of vaccine against COVID-19.
We want to have our quota as quickly as possible, as a priority, added Abdelari Nasri.
More specifically, Canada’s commitment is to fund 87 million doses through the ACT Accelerator, an international mechanism set up to improve global access to tools to fight COVID-19.
He also pledged to provide 13 million doses as part of the COVAX vaccine sharing program.
