A refugee from Africa carries a child near the Libyan-Tunisian border in Ras Ajdir, Libya, on July 23, 2023 [Hazem Ahmed/Reuters]
A refugee from Africa carries a child near the Libyan-Tunisian border in Ras Ajdir, Libya, on July 23, 2023 [Hazem Ahmed/Reuters]

Tunisia: The migration trap

Sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants fleeing northwards away from war, conflict and corrupt governments are ending up trapped in Tunisia, unable to move on to Europe or return home.

 

Across Tunisia, signs of growing hostility towards these arrivals are apparent.

The thousands living in makeshift camps are under pressure from a frustrated population and a government that analysts say is out of options.

On Friday, security forces raided two temporary camps and a protest site in the capital, Tunis, forcing more than 500 refugees onto buses to the Algerian border where they were abandoned. Some others may have been expelled to Libya.

The Refugees in Libya organisation described a wretched journey for the asylum seekers, many travelling with infants, who were refused help from hostile people in Tunisia and blocked from accessing transport back to Tunis.

Outside Sfax, 278km (172 miles) south of Tunis on the coast, thousands of sub-Saharan Africans, many of them registered refugees, shelter in open fields, attacked by security services and residents.

Refugees in Libya shared a video of 400 refugees and migrants they said had been seized from Sfax, as well as some from the Tunis camps, being expelled to Libya on May 2. The only indication the NGO has of what happened to them is a message it received on Tuesday originating from Libya’s al-Assa prison, 19km (12 miles) from the border.

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