For more than a week, Koné, a young Ivorian, has not heard from his half-sister. He barely knows that Mariam, 15, is being kidnapped by other migrants in Sfax, Tunisia’s second city. Mariam is not alone in this situation. Since October, worrying reports of new trafficking have been increasing in the country. Sub-Saharan migrants of different nationalities are kidnapped and detained in accommodation in Sfax with the aim of ransoming their loved ones. Their release can cost several hundred euros.
Le Monde Afrique was able to collect several corroborating testimonies from relatives of victims, information on their location as well as documents proving several money transfers for their release. The authorities are working discreetly with lawyers and human rights organizations to put an end to this phenomenon, linked to the repression suffered by migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia.
According to the story of her half-brother, based on the outskirts of Sfax, Mariam left Man, in western Ivory Coast, for Mali before joining Algeria in November. “It was her boyfriend back home who sent her there,” he explains. After a week, the young girl managed to cross the Tunisian border to find herself in Kasserine, in the center-west of the country. “There she called me on someone else’s phone. She no longer had hers,” Koné continues. A Tunisian driver offers to take him to Sfax, his destination, for 200 euros, as he cannot take public transport.
“This phenomenon did not exist before”
Following the declarations of President Kaïs Saïed in February 2023, affirming that the arrival of sub-Saharans in the country would be part of a “criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape”, the living conditions of migrants in Tunisia quickly deteriorated. A peak of violence occurred in July, when hundreds of sub-Saharan African nationals were expelled from Sfax by law enforcement and abandoned in the desert without means of subsistence. Since then, the Tunisian authorities have threatened to sanction those who transport people in an irregular situation. Parallel market prices immediately increased.
To pay for Mariam’s journey, Koné was able to count on a transfer from a relative in Europe, paid to the driver. But when he arrived in Sfax, he “sold it to Cameroonians and Ivorians,” assures his half-brother. The kidnappers demand 1,000 dinars (around 300 euros) to release the teenager. Having arrived in Tunisia less than two months ago, the young man has no source of income and has never been to the city of Sfax where the captive is still believed to be. “I told them that I don’t have any money right now. Now they have blocked all the numbers I know, I have not heard from them for over a week. The family is very worried and calls me every day, but I don’t know what to do,” he laments.
In charge of two similar cases, Hamida Chaieb, lawyer and member of the steering committee of the Tunisian Human Rights League (LTDH), has received several reports of kidnappings since October. “This phenomenon did not exist before,” she says, describing the same processes: “These are migrants who come from Algeria or who were expelled at the border by the police. In border areas, Tunisian transporters generally take them to Sfax where they hand them over to sub-Saharan migrants who sequester them. The amounts differ, it can go up to 2,000 Tunisian dinars. »
“His big brother paid $300.”
According to the lawyer, the cases are now managed in close collaboration with the prosecution and the Tunis criminal brigade. Several arrests have already taken place, despite reluctance and delays observed after the first reports. “At first, the police did not believe it because there were cases of people who lied to their loved ones so that they would send them money,” explains Me Chaieb.
Reality finally set in with the increase in kidnappings. Le Monde has identified at least five. “The police were then afraid to intervene because some individuals were armed. In the cases I deal with, they finally returned there but did not find them, they had already changed location,” continues Me Chaieb, who affirms that at least two people released after paying a ransom are able to testify.
Bamba, 37, has been living for several months in El Oued, in the Algerian desert, near the border with Tunisia. This Ivorian was contacted by at least three victims of this trafficking in Sfax. They had recorded his number before leaving El Oued. Bamba was thus able to help their loved ones send them the amounts requested by the kidnappers. Issa, a young Guinean and former traveling companion, is one of them.
“They left them a phone so they could contact their loved ones,” explains Bamba, who communicated to Le Monde the last known location of his friend and his two other acquaintances, as well as receipts for money transfers in francs CFA, in dollars and euros sent by the victims’ relatives. According to him, Issa left El Oued for Tunisia on December 12.
Arriving in Sfax on his own, he followed “young Ivorians” who allegedly offered him to spend the night at their home. “He tried to contact his correspondent there who was supposed to help him find accommodation, but it was late, the person did not pick up,” he relates. The next morning, the “bandits” prevent Issa from going out and demand money from him, arguing that he had to pay “the price of the taxi and accommodation”: 350 euros. “For them, it’s like a job. They started beating him and gave him the phone to call his family. I got in touch with his older brother who paid $300. He didn’t want his brother to be tortured. »
Since then, Bamba has not heard from his friend. After a long journey through Libya and Algeria, he decided to “calm down a little” and endure the living conditions of the El Oued desert for a while longer, after seeing the fate reserved in Tunisia to its companions launched on the path to Europe.
