DHAKA: More than 50 Tunisian police officers were injured, two seriously, during clashes with demonstrators in the north-central farming town of Siliana.

Tunisia interior ministry said Thursday, reports The Voice of Russia.

The clashes broke out Wednesday evening as the town held a general strike and demonstration to mark the first anniversary of a police crackdown on a peaceful protest, in which 173 people were injured by police buckshot fire.

The strike was also to protest the government’s negligence of the impoverished interior of the country, where the Arab Spring began with the revolution that toppled president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali in January 2011.

The phosphate mining town of Gafsa, 220 kilometres to the south, and the eastern coastal city of Gabes also saw general strikes Wednesday.

BDST: 1902 HRS, NOV 28, 2013