AFP
Tunisia: expelled from the city of Sfax, migrants in distress
Hundreds of African migrants are in distress on Thursday in a desert area in southern Tunisia, after being driven out of the city of Sfax, according to testimonies collected by AFP. A surge of violence fueled by calls in revenge fell Tuesday and Wednesday on migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Sfax, after one of them, presented as Cameroonian by the authorities, killed a resident of the city during a brawl. The incident sparked fire in a town whose residents were proclaiming their exasperation with the presence of illegal migrants in their town, where large numbers of them are settling in awaiting an illegal crossing to the Italy aboard makeshift boats. An increasingly openly xenophobic discourse against these migrants has spread since Tunisian President Kais Saied condemned illegal immigration in February, presenting it as a demographic threat for his country. In the aftermath of the deadly brawl, dozens of African migrants were expelled from Sfax by the security forces, to the cheers of the local population. According to NGOs, hundreds of them were taken in buses to desert areas in southern Tunisia, some of them near the border with Libya and others that of Algeria. Many migrants had arrived in Tunisia illegally from these two countries. “We have nothing to eat or drink. We are in the desert,” Issa Koné, a 27-year-old Malian, told AFP by telephone. National Guard (Tunisian) agents caught us in Sfax after breaking our house,” he added. He claims to have been taken aboard a bus near the Algerian border with a dozen other migrants with whom he shared accommodation in Sfax. jobs, Mr. Koné had worked for two years in Libya but the conflict that was ravaging the country forced him to leave. “I had come because I had heard that in Tunisia human rights were respected, but what is happening shows that this is not the reality”, he is in despair. According to Mr. Koné and other witnesses, at least a thousand migrants found themselves completely destitute in this desert area on Thursday after having been expelled from Sfax. Mamadou Dembélé, another 31-year-old Malian, thought he was on his way to realizing his dream of immigrating to Europe when the boat transporting him to the Italian coast with 46 other migrants was intercepted on Wednesday by guards. Tunisian coasts off Sfax. Instead of disembarking on the Italian island of Lampedusa as planned, he found himself Thursday in the desert of southern Tunisia where he was taken with other African migrants by Tunisian security forces . Came to Tunisia five months ago “to attempt the crossing” to Europe, he says he does not want to “return to Algeria” from where he arrived by illegally crossing the border. “I stayed six months in Algeria to try to go to Europe from there but it didn’t work so I came to try my luck from Tunisia”, he confides on the phone. “In Mali, there is conflict, it that’s why I left. I wanted to go to Europe to work, to help my family”, he adds. In addition to those forcibly transferred to the desert, dozens of migrants, fearing that they would be the target of reprisals from the local population, rushed on Wednesday and Thursday to the Sfax railway station to go to other Tunisian cities. “The day before yesterday, I was asleep. I don’t know who, but the Arabs entered the house and ransacked everything. I arrived here yesterday at 6:00. I want to go to the IOM (International Organization for Migration) and to the Embassy of Guinea Conakry” in Tunis, Souleymane Diallo, 28, a migrant from Guinea who met Thursday at Sfax station, told AFP. “I want to go back to my country. This is my destination”, he adds.bur-ezz/kl/vl
2023-07-06 19:07:33
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