Near an olive grove on the outskirts of Tunisia’s seaside capital, men stack walls of bricks on muddy earth, and fasten roofs of tin and plastic against the wind-blown rain.
They are a few of the Mediterranean country’s many poor who have become squatters since an uprising toppled the president — making use of post-revolution confusion to build on public land and move into vacant or half-completed buildings.
“[Former Tunisian president Zine El-Abidine] Ben Ali’s regime stole everything. They had no heart and ignored us poor,” said one of the men, who identified himself only as Khaled, 57. “Now we are here for all to see and we hope the new government will help us.”
The caretaker government has warned the growing number of squatters they could be prosecuted, though there has been little police presence in this once-popular tourist destination since Ben Ali was ousted last month.
North Africa’s smallest nation descended into turmoil last month after the suicide of a poor vegetable seller sparked a wave of demonstrations that led Ben Ali to flee to Saudi Arabia and encouraged a similar revolution in Egypt.
Protests have also sprung up elsewhere in the Arab world, including Libya, Yemen and Bahrain.
“We are worried the police will come, but we hope they will help us, instead of taking all that we have,” said a woman at the encampment in Tunis’ Mnihla neighborhood, who asked not to be named.
She said she had sold most of her possessions for the bricks and cement for her shelter.
“I have five children and I want to keep them off the streets,” she said. “We are Tunisian, this is our country. Where do they think we should go?”
Ben Ali took power more than 13 years ago and, despite presenting an image of stability to the outside world, was seen by Tunisians as an oppressive ruler who raided public funds, and allowed poverty and unemployment to fester.
Official figures put the unemployment rate at 14 percent, though experts believe it is much higher and could worsen if the new -instability crimps economic growth.
In the Sidi Amor district of Tunis, a low-lying area of ramshackle homes, sparse cafes and butchers’ shops displaying sides of beef and cows’ heads on meathooks, squatters have started moving into unfinished apartment buildings.
Funded by a low-cost government housing program called 26-26, the buildings stand windowless and unconnected to water and electricity, the access road blocked by a pile of sand.
Dozens of other public plots and vacant buildings are also being occupied across the country, according to state media — a trend that prompted a warning from the Interior Ministry, a body deeply feared during Ben Ali’s rule.
“The Interior Minister calls on all who have carried out these acts to leave the homes they have taken illegally and to halt all unauthorized building,” it said in a communique. “We cannot permit anyone to use the revolution as a reason to break the law. The law, above all.”
The construction in Mnihla continues. A woman calling herself only ‘Mother of Rashid’ for fear of prosecution, tended a small plot of onions near her brick hut.
“The people around here are sympathetic to us because they know this is the fault of the Ben Ali regime,” she said.
“The people in these houses give us water,” she said, pointing to a middle-class neighborhood 100m away.
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