Tunisia police teargas migrant protesters at UNHCR offices

By AFP

Tunisian police on Tuesday used tear gas to disperse homeless black migrants who have been protesting outside a United Nations office to demand evacuation following incendiary comments by country's President Kais Saied.

AFP journalists saw police breaking up the encampment outside the Tunis office of the global body's refugee agency United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

The migrants from sub-Saharan Africa have been protesting there, saying they are not safe in Tunisia.

The UNHCR announced earlier this month that it was suspending asylum activities worldwide as it moved to a new registration system.

Migrants in Tunisia have held repeated protests outside the agency's office in the Lac district of the capital including on Tuesday, when they erected barricades in front of the UNHCR office there.

A Malian Famoussa Koita who is recognised by the UN as a legitimate asylum claimant, said many people had been waiting two or three years for the agency to settle their cases.

Read: Migrants stranded in Niger desert town[1]

Migrants also argued with residents of the plush lakeside neighbourhood before being dispersed by police.

Tunisia's Interior Ministry Spokesman Faker Bouzghaya said the country's police intervened at the request of the UNHCR and 80 migrants had been detained.

Hundreds of migrants have been living outside the nearby office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), without access to toilets or running water, since Saied claimed without evidence in February that migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were causing crime and represented a "plot" to change Tunisia's demographic makeup.

Shortly after his speech, black Africans faced a wave of violence and many including pregnant women and children were expelled from their homes and workplaces by landlords fearing fines or prison.

Hundreds of fearful West Africans were flown home on repatriation flights.

A group of migrants late Monday told journalists in a text message that they had been unjustly kicked out of their homes and got sacked from work after Saied's speech.

"We want to be evacuated immediately to any other safe country that will accept and respect us as human, not a country like Tunisia that don't value us as human," they said.

Read: UN blasts EU on Libya migrants abuses[2]

"We came to Tunisia. for refuge but the country is not safe for us and we can't stay here anymore," they added.

A Tunisian Elyes Ben Zakour who lives nearby, said migrants were "blocking the street" and complained that residents had been unable to leave their houses for 25 days.

After the police dispersed the migrants, an AFP journalist saw UNHCR windows and surveillance cameras broken.

Municipal workers removed migrants' tents and cleared away their belongings.

References

1. ^ Migrants stranded in Niger desert town (www.theeastafrican.co.ke)
2. ^ UN blasts EU on Libya migrants abuses (www.theeastafrican.co.ke)