As Tunisia faces a surge of Covid-19 cases, demand for life-saving oxygen has grown higher than the supply, leaving patients desperate and family members angry at the government as they say they are forced to find oxygen on their own.

As the misery grows, traders have seized on an opportunity for profit, buying supplies of oxygen and other treatments and then renting them or selling them at higher prices. The profitable enterprise that is growing online has prompted citizens to call on authorities for intervention.

“I was subjected to various types of blackmailing. People were trading and brokering with everything. Believe me, with everything,” said Abdou Mzoughi, 43, whose nearly 80-year-old mother died on June 26 from Covid-19 after he spent six days trying, but failing, to get the oxygen treatment she needed.

“We were looking for a bed with oxygen in any hospital,” he said. He couldn’t even find her a place in a field hospital or obtain a larger oxygen concentrator for at-home treatment.

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