Violence, fueled by calls for revenge against immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa, escalated in Sfax on Tuesday and Wednesday, after a Tunisian resident of Sfax was killed during clashes at the hands of a Cameroonian, according to statements by the Tunisian authorities.
This incident increased the tension in a city whose residents were already complaining about the presence of illegal immigrants in their city, as a large number of them settle, waiting to cross the Mediterranean towards the Italian coast.
Hate speech against these immigrants has become increasingly widespread since Tunisian President Kais Saied’s statements last February, in which he criticized illegal immigration and considered it a demographic threat to his country.
After the clashes that took place at the beginning of this week, the security forces expelled dozens of African migrants from Sfax in the center-west of the country.
NGOs reported that hundreds of them were bussed to desert areas in southern Tunisia, some near the border with Libya and others from Algeria.
Many immigrants arrived in Tunisia illegally from these two countries by land and on foot.
“We have nothing to eat or drink. We are in the desert,” Issa Kony, 27, who is from Mali, told AFP by phone.
“Members of the (Tunisian) National Guard arrested us in Sfax after they broke into our house,” he continues. He explains that he was taken on a bus near the Algerian border with dozens of other migrants with whom he lived in Sfax.
“attempt to cross”
Before arriving in Tunisia, where he used to live from simple jobs, Kony worked for two years in Libya, but because of the conflict in this country and the absence of stability and security, he found himself forced to leave.
Kony expresses his despair and says, “I came because I heard that Tunisia respects human rights, but what is happening shows that this is not a reality.”
Kony and others confirm that no less than a thousand immigrants, at least, are present Thursday in this desert region, after their expulsion from Sfax.
Mamadou Dembele, a 31-year-old immigrant from Mali, believes that he was on his way to fulfill his dream of migrating to Europe when the Tunisian coast guard intercepted the boat on Wednesday that he was transporting towards the Italian coast, accompanied by 46 other immigrants.
Dreams of his arrival in Italy vanished, and instead of reaching its coast, he found himself Thursday in the Tunisian desert, where the police took him with many other immigrants.
He arrived in Tunisia five months ago to “try to cross” towards Europe. He asserts that he does not want to “return to Algeria”, which he reached from his country in an illegal crossing of the land border.
“I stayed six months in Algeria to try to go to Europe from there, but I did not succeed in that, so I came to try my luck from Tunisia,” he added.
“In Mali, there is conflict, and that’s why I left. I wanted to go to Europe to work, to help my family.”
In addition to those who were forcibly transported to the desert, dozens of migrants, fearing reprisals from the local population, rushed Wednesday and Thursday to the train station in Sfax to head to other Tunisian cities.
“I was sleeping on Tuesday. They came to the house and looted everything. I arrived here yesterday at six in the morning. I want to go to the International Organization for Migration,” Souleymane Diallo, 28, a migrant from Guinea, told AFP.
“I want to go back to my country,” he concludes. “It is my destination.”
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2023-07-06 18:10:09
