TUNIS, July 11 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Hundreds of migrants left stranded in harsh conditions on the Tunisia-Libya border after fleeing violence were moved on Monday, an NGO said, but fears remained for dozens of others forced towards Algeria.
Racial tensions flared into violence against migrants from sub-Saharan African countries in Tunisia’s port city of Sfax last week, with hundreds fleeing or being pushed to inhospitable southern desert border areas.
“All of the 500 to 700 migrants who were at the Libyan border have been transferred elsewhere,” Salsabil Chellali of Human Rights Watch (HRW) in Tunis said.
“But many other people expelled near the Algerian border risk their lives if they are not rescued immediately,” she added. HRW estimates their numbers at 150 to 200.
Media reports and rights groups said earlier on Monday that migrants at the militarised buffer zone between Tunisia and Libya, near Ras Jedir, were taken to Tunisian cities including Medenine, Tataouine and Gabes.
A dozen others were housed in the Tunisian town of Ben Guerdane, including at a school building.
Tunisia has seen a rise in racially motivated attacks after President Kais Saied in February accused “hordes” of undocumented migrants of bringing violence, and alleging a “criminal plot” to change the country’s demographic make-up.
The crackdown on migrants in Sfax — a departure point for many hoping to reach Europe — erupted after the funeral of a 41-year-old Tunisian man who was stabbed to death on July 3 in an altercation between locals and migrants.
“We have been witnessing for days… a real manhunt going on” in Sfax, said Beity, a Tunisian non-governmental organisation helping victims of gender-based violence and discrimination.
It denounced “security threats” to migrants and “their expulsion and deportation” towards the Sahara desert.
An official at Mali’s embassy in Tunis said “a dozen Malians who have fled Sfax in recent days, including one who broke his arm while trying to escape locals, have been taken into the embassy”.
For those sent to near the Algerian border, the situation is becoming increasingly difficult, witnesses said.
“Please help us. If you can send the Red Cross here, help us, otherwise we will die,” Mamadou, a migrant from Guinea who gave only his first name, said by phone.
“There is nothing here. There’s no food, there’s no water.”
About 30 migrants have been abandoned to fend for themselves in a desert area near the Algerian village of Douar El Ma, close to the Tunisian border, he said.
Aid group Refugees International said Tunisian authorities have “violently arrested, transported and expelled hundreds of black migrants and asylum seekers”.
It said on Sunday that some of the migrants have legal status in Tunisia and are registered with the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
The group called on the United States, European Union and individual European countries to provide urgent aid and condemn the “forced expulsions by the Tunisian security services”.
Foreign nations should “suspend security assistance to Tunisia until further expulsions cease and the abuses that occurred during the recent expulsions are investigated”, Refugees International said.
The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) in Tunisia said it had reported to the United Nations Committee Against Torture the case of a migrant being “beaten with an iron bar at security posts” in Ben Guerdane.
The OMCT accused Tunisian agents of mistreating “more than 700 migrants” at the buffer zone, including depriving them of water and food “because of their racial origin in order to force them to leave the territory”.
These actions “constitute torture”, it said.
President Saied on Saturday dismissed what he described as “lies propagated on social networks” about migrants being expelled.
According to Saied, migrant women in Tunisia receive “humane treatment in accordance with our values”, a statement from the presidency said.
“Tunisia is not a furnished apartment for sale or rent,” he added, blaming the migrant influx into the country on “criminal networks”. — NNN-AGENCIES
