BEN GUERDANE (Tunisia), July 13 (NNN-AGENCIES) — More than 600 migrants forced out of Tunisia’s port of Sfax to the desert borderlands with Libya are being sheltered and given humanitarian aid, the Red Crescent said.
However, smaller groups of people remain stranded near the frontiers with Algeria and Libya.
Hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan countries fled or were forced out of Sfax after racial tensions flared following the July 3 killing of a Tunisian man in an altercation between locals and migrants.
Sfax is a North African departure point for many migrants from impoverished and violence-torn countries hoping to find a better life in Europe.
Many of those expelled from Sfax were left to fend for themselves in harsh desert conditions near Tunisia’s borders.
Abdellatif Chabou, president of the Tunisian Red Crescent, said the charity had been authorised to pick up hundreds of migrants left without water or food in the militarised zone of Ras Jedir, on the Libyan border.
He said the organisation had provided shelter to “630 in total” between Sunday and Monday – a figure which could increase in the coming days.
Chabou said the migrants now in Ras Jedir “came from several places, a group from Tunisia and another from Libya”.
He said the Red Crescent was feeding them and had brought 400 mattresses from Tunis to equip the schools where they are now being sheltered.
The situation is different just south of Ras Jedir, however.
HRW said there are at least 100 migrants without food, water or shelter, and that some have been stuck there for several days.
NGOs are also concerned about the fate of dozens of other migrants, estimated by HRW to number between 150 and 200, scattered along Tunisia’s western border with Algeria.
On Tuesday, a judiciary spokesman said that the bodies of two sub-Saharans had been found in the Hazoua desert near Algeria.
The Red Crescent said the migrants who had been picked up were being sheltered in Medenine, Tataouine and Ben Guerdane to “allow time to prepare other smaller centres so our volunteers can provide better support” along with other international groups.
Chabou said the idea was to carry out “profiling” with the International Organization of Migration help to find out if “some are asylum seekers or if they want to return to their home country within the framework of the United Nations voluntary return programme”.
He said that just 200 migrants from those picked up near the border with Libya said they wanted to go home. Most of the others asked to be taken to Europe. — NNN-AGENCIES
