Tunisia's National Meteorological Institute has declared the summer of 2026 the country's hottest since records began in 1950, with average temperatures running 2.9°C above the previous record. The peak was logged in Kairouan (a historic city in central Tunisia), where thermometers reached 49.7°C in mid-July, while prolonged heatwaves also drove nighttime temperatures to unusual highs across the country. The extreme heat triggered cascading crises including power cuts lasting more than ten hours and widespread water shortages, with a group of young Tunisian doctors reporting heat-related deaths and the Tunisian League for Human Rights documenting 23 fatalities in prisons, where overcrowding worsened conditions; scientists attribute the severity of the heatwaves to climate change.