Tunisian footballer Nizar Issaoui35 years old, died this Thursday due to third degree burns who suffered after blowing himself up on Monday in a protest against police abuse after being charged with terrorism over a neighborhood fight over the price of bananas in the African country’s Kairouan region.

“Due to a dispute with a person who sells bananas for 10 dinars (about three dollars) I go to the police station and they interrogate me for terrorism. Terrorism due to a banana complaint“, Issaoui explained in a live video posted on social media a few seconds before going to the police station.

Issaoui, a former player of the Union Sportif de Monastir team, in the Tunisian first division football, was a father of four and was transferred today from the capital’s Major Burns Unit to his hometown, Haffouz, where neighbors have moved to say hello . .

Security forces used tear gas to disperse dozens of residents who demonstrated in front of the police station to report Issaoui’s death, forcing businesses in the area to close.

In 2018, the death of another young man in the same circumstances sparked a wave of protests in Kasserine against the degradation of living conditions in one of the poorest regions of the country.

Abderrazak Rezgui, a 32-year-old cameraman who worked for a private television channel, set himself on fire live on social media to denounce the marginalization and abandonment of unemployed young people.

Rezgui explained that with his action he intended to start a revolution like the one that erupted in 2011 after the immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi, in the nearby city of Sidi Bouzid, and which put an end to two decades of dictatorship of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.