Ikram Aioua has seen her 12-year-old son rushed to the hospital three times in the past weeks for gas poisoning.

Like thousands who have turned out to protest in her southern Tunisian city of Gabes, Aioua is demanding the closure of a nearby chemical factory, blaming it for a range of serious health issues.

"I was in the classroom when I felt my throat burning and my head getting heavy, then I fainted," said Ahmed, Aioua's son.

The factory "is deadly poison", his 40-year-old mother cried. "It must be dismantled."

Since early September Gabes has recorded an increasing number of respiratory distress and other health problems, sparking fresh protests.

Other students in Ahmed's school at Chott Essalem, a coastal neighbourhood not far from the phosphate processing plant, have also complain

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