Tunisia: NGOs call for help for migrants expelled by police and local population

(Patria) - Tunisian human rights groups have called for urgent aid and shelter for migrants expelled from Sfax last week, AFP reported.

Hundreds of migrants fled or were expelled from Tunisia's second-largest city after racial tensions flared following the murder of a Tunisian man on July 3 in a dispute between locals and migrants.

The port of Sfax is a departure point for many migrants hoping to reach Europe by crossing the Mediterranean, often in makeshift boats. Hundreds of migrants were forcibly taken to desert and hostile areas bordering Libya and Algeria following the unrest in Sfax.

Romdane Ben Amor, spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights
(FTDES), said between 100 and 150 migrants, including women and children, were still
stranded on the border with Libya. He said about 165 migrants abandoned near the Algerian border had been picked up, without specifying by whom or where they were taken.

"Migrants are being moved from one place to another, while other groups are hiding in the wilderness in
catastrophic conditions for fear of being discovered and suffering the same fate as those stranded at the borders," Ben Amor said.

He called for migrants to be housed and said authorities must send a "clear message" to citizens to help them, regardless of their status. About 100 demonstrators marched in Tunis on Friday evening at the call of an anti-fascist coalition, expressing their "solidarity with undocumented migrants." The demonstrators also criticized the Tunisian police for having "expelled you (migrants) and repressed us."

Meanwhile, the head of a Cameroonian association claimed that police carried out "arbitrary arrests" of sub-Saharan Africans around the train station in Zarzis, south of Sfax.

"About 300 were arrested... just because of their skin color!" said Eric Tchata, who posted a video online shot by his Cameroonian colleague, which allegedly shows a group of people, including women and children, packed into a warehouse in Medenine, also south of Sfax.

Ben Amor expressed fears that migrants could die if they are not immediately provided with aid and shelter, noting that the bodies of two had already been found. Human Rights Watch said migrants were left to fend for themselves without water or shelter in border regions where temperatures exceed 40 degrees Celsius.

Tunisia has seen a rise in racist attacks after President Kais Saied accused "hordes" of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries of bringing violence in February, citing a "criminal conspiracy" to change the country's demographic makeup. Saied said on Friday that what Tunisia offered migrants was "better than what they find elsewhere."

"But we refuse to be a country of transit or a country of settlement," said the Tunisian president.

He reiterated claims that Tunisia was the victim of "criminal human trafficking networks."