Tunisian police deploy teargas against sub-Saharan migrants

Tunisian authorities have broken up an encampment of homeless migrants in front of the UNHCR office in Tunis. Sub-Saharan migrants, who have become the target of President Kais Saied's racist rhetoric, are calling for evacuations - deeming Tunisia unsafe for Black Africans. Tunisian police used teargas on Tuesday (April 11) to disperse homeless Black migrants, according to a report from French news agency AFP.

AFP journalists said they witnessed police breaking up an encampment of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa[1] who have held repeated demonstrations outside the UNHCR office in the Lac district of the capital Tunis. The migrants have said they are "not safe" in Tunisia following racist rhetoric from President Kais Saied, and are demanding evacuation. The migrants built barricades in front of the UN office on Tuesday.

Tunisian Elyes Ben Zakour, who lives nearby, said migrants were "blocking the street" and that residents had been unable to leave their houses for 25 days, AFP reported. Interior ministry spokesman Faker Bouzghaya said the police intervened at the request of the UNHCR and 80 migrants had been detained, according to AFP. Municipal workers then removed migrants' tents and their belongings.

UNHCR suspends asylum services

The UN refugee agency said earlier this month that it was suspending asylum activities worldwide while it changed to a new registration system.

Many asylum claimants have been waiting two or three years for the UNHCR to settle their cases. Hundreds of migrants have also been camping outside the nearby office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), without access to toilets or running water, AFP reported. Elsewhere in the capital, scores of people took to the streets over the weekend to protest the imprisonment of opposition figures who have been arrested as part of a wide-reaching crackdown[2] against critics of Saied's regime.

Why are sub-Saharan African migrants seeking to leave Tunisia?

Global rights group Human Rights Watch warned on Wednesday that Tunisia is "backsliding towards authoritarianism."

In 2021, President Saied dissolved parliament and declared he was taking over control of public prosecutions. Since then, Saied has imprisoned numerous government critics, dismantled the judiciary, and most recently, stoked anti-immigrant violence. In February, Saied claimed without evidence that sub-Saharan African migrants were committing crime and were behind a "plot"[3] to alter Tunisia's demographic makeup.

In a speech, the president reiterated the "great replacement" theory that political elites are replacing local inhabitants with immigrant supporters. Shortly after his speech, a wave of violence erupted across the country targeting Black Africans. Sub-Saharan migrants, including pregnant women and children, were expelled virtually overnight from their homes and jobs by landlords and managers fearing fines or prison.

Saied later issued a second statement, denying being racist. He said he only wanted police to implement Tunisian law, and repeated the idea there had been a conspiracy to change Tunisia's demographics. "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," a group of migrants told journalists in a text message late Monday, AFP reported.

The migrants said they had been "unjustly kicked out of our homes and got sacked from work" after Saied's speech.

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

With AFP and Reuters

References

1. ^ migrants from sub-Saharan Africa (www.infomigrants.net)
2. ^ wide-reaching crackdown (www.infomigrants.net)
3. ^ were behind a "plot" (www.infomigrants.net)