2023-07-10 16:16:34
A Tunisian association launched an appeal on Monday for the implementation of emergency aid for dozens of migrants driven out of Sfax, in the center-east of the country, towards the Libyan and Algerian borders.
Beity, an association that helps women who are victims of violence, found it necessary to “emergency coordination” bringing together human rights defenders, NGOs and public institutions in order to “coordinate efforts and pool resources” for a “efficient and quality care for sub-Saharan migrants”.
Human Rights Watch calls on Tunisia to stop deporting sub-Saharan migrants to the desert
Dozens of African migrants driven out of Sfax
“Lies”
In a statement, the refugee aid organization Refugees International denounced “the violent arrests and forced expulsions of hundreds of black African migrants”pointing out that some were nevertheless “registered with the High Commissioner for Refugees or have legal status in Tunisia”.
The World Organization Against Torture in Tunisia (OMCT) announced on Monday that it had seized the UN Committee against Torture to denounce the specific case of “VF, a migrant of sub-Saharan origin deported to the border between Tunisia and Libya on July 2” after being arrested without cause and “beaten with an iron bar in secure positions” in Ben Guerdane (east). These ill-treatments as well as the deprivation of water and food for “more than 700 migrants” retained in the buffer zone “knowingly imposed by State agents on VF and other migrants because of their racial background in order to force them to leave the territory constitute torture”added the OMCT.
Sfax under tension since the assassination of a Tunisian who was allegedly killed by migrants
An increasingly openly xenophobic discourse against these migrants has spread since the Tunisian President, Kais Saied, condemned illegal immigration in February, presenting it as a demographic threat to his country, plagued by a socio-economic crisis that has worsened since he assumed full powers in July 2021.
On Saturday, he denounced what he described as “lies spread on social networks”claiming that migrants in Tunisia received “humane treatment in line with our values, contrary to what is said in colonial circles and among the agents who work in their service”, according to a press release from the presidency. According to him, sub-Saharan migrants present in his country “have only chosen Tunisia as their destination because a road has been paved for them by criminal networks”. “Tunisia is not a furnished apartment for sale or rent”he added.
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