Rahma Dziri
Student
Summary
Rahma Dziri, aged 20, a student at the Higher Institute of Technological Studies of Sfax living in the Sidi Mansour university residence, died on the night of Wednesday 21 October 2026 after losing consciousness during a party held in a hall inside the residence. According to the testimonies of students living in the residence, the ambulance took between one hour and one and a half hours to arrive, while the residence had no resident medical staff and no functioning medical unit. The testimonies state that Rahma died before the ambulance arrived, and that some twenty other students suffered fainting, shock or suffocation during the same night. The University Services Office for the South announced that it had opened an inquiry into the incident.
Personal Information
Name: Rahma Dziri.
Age: 20.
Status: Student at the Higher Institute of Technological Studies of Sfax.
Nationality: Tunisian.
Governorate: Menzel Chaker delegation, Sfax governorate.
Incidents of Violation
On the evening of Wednesday 21 October 2026, a party began at around 8 p.m. in a small, cramped hall in the Sidi Mansour university residence. During the party, Rahma Dziri felt dizzy before losing consciousness at around 10:30 p.m.
According to testimonies given by students living in the residence to Intersection Association for Rights and Freedoms, Rahma, unconscious, was carried to the residence courtyard with the help of several students and staff members. The residence administration then called an ambulance, while a volunteer student tried to give her first aid, without managing to save her.
The same testimonies state that the ambulance coming from Habib Bourguiba Hospital in Sfax, about ten kilometres from the residence, was delayed by around an hour and a half. According to these testimonies, Rahma had died about half an hour before the ambulance arrived. When the paramedics arrived, it took them only a few minutes to confirm her death, and her body was then taken away in the ambulance.
The testimonies add that some twenty students suffered fainting, shock or suffocation during the same night, without receiving a rapid medical response.
The testimonies also indicate that the university residence had previously experienced a similar health incident, during which the ambulance never arrived, forcing the students to hire a taxi at their own expense to take their fellow student to hospital.
Following Rahma's death, the administration of the university residence attributed the cause of death to "an acute heart attack". In an official statement, the Director General of the University Services Office for the South acknowledged that university services institutions have no resident medical staff and that the nursing rooms set up in them have remained out of service owing to the absence of nurses. The Office also announced that it had opened an inquiry into the incident.
Human Rights Violations
The death of Rahma Dziri in a public university residence, given the testimonies concerning the delayed arrival of the ambulance, the absence of resident medical staff and the nursing rooms being out of service, raises serious concerns as to whether the public authorities concerned have fulfilled their obligations to protect the right to life and to guarantee access to emergency health care. Article 24 of the 2022 Constitution of the Republic of Tunisia enshrines the right to life, while Article 43 guarantees the right to health and obliges the State to ensure prevention and health care and to provide the resources needed to guarantee the safety and quality of health services. At the international level, Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights protects the inherent right to life, and the Human Rights Committee, in its General Comment No. 36, clarifies that the State's obligations are not limited to refraining from arbitrary deprivation of life but also include taking appropriate measures to protect life from reasonably foreseeable threats, including intervening in circumstances that may expose it to serious danger.
Article 12 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights also guarantees the right to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. General Comment No. 14 of the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights explains that this right requires health facilities and services to be available and accessible, including the provision of medical care in emergencies.
In this context, the official acknowledgement that there is no resident medical staff and that the nursing rooms are out of service, together with the testimonies on the delayed ambulance and on other students not receiving a rapid medical response, raises serious questions about the residence's preparedness to respond to medical emergencies and about whether the human resources, equipment and intervention mechanisms needed to protect the health and safety of residents are in place. The importance of this issue is not limited to Rahma's death but extends to the safety of the other students living in the residence, particularly in light of the report of a similar health incident in the past. Holding a party in a hall described as small and cramped, at the same time as several students experienced fainting, shock or suffocation, also raises questions about the safety and prevention conditions applied to group activities in the residence and whether appropriate measures were taken to avoid health risks. These facts require verification of whether the conditions under which the party was organised were appropriate. The right to life further requires a prompt, effective, independent and impartial investigation into the death, so as to clarify its circumstances, verify the timeline of the medical intervention, determine whether shortcomings in the response contributed to the outcome, and establish responsibilities where appropriate. In this regard, the residence administration's attribution of the death to "an acute heart attack" calls for a distinction between an administrative statement and the medical findings established by a competent examination, so that the cause of death is not settled before the investigation and the necessary medical information are complete. The announcement by the University Services Office for the South that it has opened an inquiry is a procedural step that should lead to clarifying the circumstances of the death, examining the preparedness of emergency services in the residence, and identifying the corrective measures needed to prevent such incidents from recurring.