Marching until exhaustion, hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa arrive daily in Libya, after being abandoned at the border, in the middle of the desert, by Tunisian security forces, according to their testimonies and those of Libyan border guards. collected by AFP.
Around 100 Africans were rescued by Libyan guards on Sunday as they wandered in an arid, uninhabited area near the Sebkhat al-Magta, a salt lake along the Tunisian-Libyan border, a team from the Libyan-Tunisian border found. AFP.
It is noon, the hour when the heat is unbearable by more than 40 degrees, a patrol finds a passed out man and tries to revive him by pouring a few drops of water on his lips. He is barely breathing.
In the distance, in the heat haze, six black dots can be seen. A few minutes later, these survivors explain in Arabic that they come from Tunisia.
For about two weeks, Libyan border guards say they have rescued hundreds of migrants, deposited, according to them, by the Tunisian authorities at the border, near the town of Al’Assah, 150 kilometers to the southwest. from Tripoli.
Following clashes between migrants and locals that claimed the life of a Tunisian on July 3, hundreds of Africans were driven out of Sfax, Tunisia’s main point of departure for illegal emigration to Europe.
According to the NGO Human Rights Watch, at least “1,200 sub-Saharan nationals” were then “expelled” by Tunisian security forces to the borders with Libya to the east, and Algeria to the west.
The Tunisian Red Crescent subsequently sheltered more than 600 in Ras Jedir, a buffer zone separating Tunisia and Libya, and around 200 on the Algerian side.
But near Al’Assah, 40 kilometers south of Ras Jedir, they continue to arrive, dazed, in clusters of two or three or dozens. Exhausted by the heat and thirst, they collapse at the feet of the guards.
Lately, the Libyan border guards, the direction of the fight against Saharan immigration and the soldiers of “Battalion 19” carry out daily patrols.
“We are at the dividing line between Libya and Tunisia and see more and more migrants arriving every day,” said Ali Wali, spokesman for Battalion 19.
He explains that he authorized AFP to accompany them on patrol “to silence those (in Tunisia, editor’s note) who claim that we made all this and brought the migrants here”, at the border.
In their range of 15 kilometers around Al’Assah, they recover “according to the days 150, 200, 350, sometimes up to 400/500 illegal immigrants”, he says.
Today, they are 110, including two women. Two others reported by a migrant have not been found. A soldier scans the horizon with his binoculars.
The survivors crossed the border without knowing it, walking in the direction indicated by the Tunisian police: Libya.
Haytham Yahiya is Sudanese. He had been working in construction for a year in Tunisia, where he had arrived clandestinely via Niger and then Algeria.
“I was at work when they caught me and brought me here, first in a police car, then in a military truck (Tunisian security forces, editor’s note) then they abandoned me, telling me to go to Libya,” he said.
Under a blazing sun, without water or food, some “walked for two days”.
This is the case of Alexander Unche Okolo, who illegally entered “Tunisia by crossing Algeria”. He “spent some time in Tunis” before being “arrested in the street” recently and then “taken to the Sahara desert”, explains the 41-year-old Nigerian.
Moved, he shows the screen of his phone: “they broke it and hit me”, he accuses.
According to Mr. Wali, on Saturday, “two bodies were found, and two days before, five including a woman with her baby, in addition to five other bodies found a week ago”.
“How do you expect them to survive this? The heat, no water and a two, three day walk,” the spokesperson said.
According to humanitarian organizations in Libya contacted by AFP, the death toll is at least 17 in the past three weeks.
In Ras Jedir, there are still 350 in a makeshift camp, including 65 children and 12 pregnant women: “Their living conditions are very problematic,” a humanitarian official in Libya told AFP. According to him, about 180 other migrants, including 20 children, are temporarily housed in Al’Assah.
In Ras Jedir, it has been ten days since they began to receive water, food and medical care from the Libyan Red Crescent.
Their situation is improving “but it is not sustainable in the long term, there are no toilets, no water tanks, no real shelters”, underlines the humanitarian source.
The government of Tripoli has made it known in recent days that it refuses a “resettlement” on its territory of migrants arriving from Tunisia. Libya has been singled out by several UN reports denouncing violence against the 600,000 migrants it detains, most of them in camps.
07/31/2023 12:30:17 – Al-‘Assah (Libye) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
