The NGO Human Rights Watch denounced, on Friday in a press release, the expulsion of hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants (Cameroonians, Ivorians, Sudanese and Senegalese, etc.) by elements of the Tunisian national guard and army, following the the death of a Tunisian linked to recent clashes between migrants and natives in the city of Sfax.
Since July 2, between 500 and 700 Sub-Saharans, including children and pregnant women, have been taken to the Libyan border and left to their fate, specifies the human rights organization, which bases itself on testimonies, adding that these expellees were abandoned in a remote and militarized buffer zone, on the border between Tunisia and Libya, in the middle of the desert.
“The Tunisian security forces put them by force on the buses, telling them: ‘We are going to take you away from Sfax to protect you. All this to, in the end, transport them to the border. And when they wake up in the morning, they find themselves in the desert,” said Salsabil Chellali, director of HRW in Tunisia.
For this official, the violence in Sfax only served as a pretext for the authorities to implement their initiatives.
HRW calls on the Tunisian government to put an end to these “collective expulsions” of sub-Saharan migrants to the desert and to urgently allow humanitarian access to these migrants.
“Not only is it unacceptable to abuse people and abandon them in the desert, but collective expulsions violate international law,” said Lauren Seibert, researcher on refugee rights at HRW, who also made it clear that these sub-Saharans have “little food and no medical assistance”.
Violence against migrants has exacerbated since the speech deemed “racist” made by President Kaïs Saïed last February, accusing sub-Saharans of wanting to “transform the demographic composition of Tunisia”.
By OMA Newsletter N° 1240 of 08/07/2023
Article published under the direction of Dr. Najib Kettani
The OMA, NGO with an Intercontinental vocation
For the development of cultural exchanges
Valuing human potential
The promotion and consolidation of Africa’s development, and
Inter-African integration
