Tunisia deports more than 1,200 sub-Saharan migrants

July 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Tunisia has deported more than 1,200 sub-Saharan migrants who were in the port city of Sfax since the Eid al Adha celebration began on Tuesday.

Moez Barakalá, a legislator from Sfax, indicated this Wednesday that the authorities have sent the migrants to areas close to the borders with Libya and Algeria, according to statements collected by the TAP news agency.

“Four trips a day, each including 50 irregular migrants, have been organized from the city of Sfax. By the end of the week, between 3,000 and 4,000 migrants are expected to be deported if means of transport are available,” Barakalá explained.

The spokesman for the non-governmental organization Tunisian Forum for Social and Economic Rights (FTDES), Romdhane ben Amor, has denounced that a large number of buses transport migrants to the border “at temperatures of up to 50 degrees, in poor conditions, without any help and without providing any kind of resource.

Ben Amor has indicated that, according to several known sources, the disappearance of a group of 28 people has been confirmed. In addition, he has listed a series of “serious violations of Human Rights, such as illegal and arbitrary deportation to the border under threat, destruction of telephones, lack of medical and maternity care, abuse and violence.”

“Until now, no official statement from the authorities has been published regarding the fate of thousands of foreigners who find themselves in this situation,” said the FTDES spokesman, who reiterated that these actions constitute a “clear” violation of the provisions of the Treaty on the Status of Refugees.

Likewise, it has criticized that this situation -in which there have been violent confrontations between residents and migrants- has been used by the Tunisian authorities “as a means to carry out a campaign of successive arrests in recent days”, as well as forced and illegal deportations with the aim of “purifying” the city of anyone from the desert countries of southern Africa.

The spokesperson for said organization regretted that this situation is taking place while the European Union and Tunisia are negotiating to establish an association that includes financial assistance measures to promote migration cooperation through the reintegration of migrants.

“The extreme of the racist policies of the EU is to create an environment of persecution for migrants at the critical points of exit operations. Racism and hate speech against migrants are part of the strategies to control the flow. Europe It not only relies on the military and coastal teams to prevent the exit, but on arming the exit environment with hate speech and making it serve their agendas,” he concluded.

The President of Tunisia, Kais Saied, asked this Tuesday to restore security in Sfax, one of the main departure points for migrants to Europe, due to the tensions that have been created between groups of migrants and residents of the city, which has ended with casualties on both sides.

In a meeting with the Minister of the Interior, Kamel Feki, Saied insisted that Tunisia “will never be a border guard” for other countries, that it will act as a transit or residence zone for asylum seekers and that it will reject illegal migrants. according to the Tunisie Numerique portal.

It should be remembered that numerous NGOs have accused the president of encouraging a campaign of xenophobic violence against sub-Saharan migrants who use the country as a springboard to reach Europe. And it is that Tunisia has become in recent years one of the main starting points for boats with which migrants from the country and those arriving from sub-Saharan Africa try to make the crossing through the Mediterranean Sea to reach Europe.

In addition, the city of Sfax has been the scene of numerous shipwrecks of migrant boats heading to the coasts of Europe. In early April, the Tunisian Coast Guard reported that more than 14,000 migrants have already been detained while trying to reach Europe since the beginning of the year.