Reuters

TUNIS: Authorities imposed an overnight curfew in a Tunisian province Thursday, an official said, after riots over jobs highlighted the challenges facing the new government in meeting expectations for better living conditions.
The riots in the Gafsa region followed violence in a nearby region Wednesday night, when security forces were forced to fire into the air to stop a crowd of protesters attacking a government building.

Tunisia became the birthplace of the “Arab Spring” uprisings when protests forced out the autocratic president in January. In its first democratic election last month, Tunisia voted to hand power to a coalition led by moderate Islamists.
People rioted in two towns in the Gafsa region, 360 kilometers southwest of the Tunisian capital, after they were left off a list of people recruited by a local phosphate mining company.

“There are riots and looting in Om Larayss and Mthila. It started yesterday and continued today,” witness Hedi Radaoui told Reuters. “Youths set fire to police stations and buildings of the Gafsa Phosphate Company and the Office of Labour.”
A government official said the provincial authorities imposed a curfew in Gafsa, effective from Thursday, from 7 p.m. (1800 GMT) to 6 a.m., in an effort to prevent further unrest.

The Gafsa region, near Tunisia’s border with Algeria, is the center of the mining industry. It is also one of the most impoverished areas of Tunisia and has been the scene of several protests and riots since the January revolution.
Late Wednesday, about 3,000 protesters in the town of Kasserine, about 300 km southwest of Tunis, tried to storm the town prison. They took to the streets because they felt the authorities had failed to recognize their town’s contribution to the revolution earlier this year which forced Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia.