Dozens of African migrants have been driven out of Sfax, Tunisia’s second city where illegal immigration is causing great tension, as the summer season conducive to departures begins. In several neighborhoods of this large city in central-eastern Tunisia, hundreds of residents gathered in the streets overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday demanding the immediate departure of all illegal migrants, according to a correspondent from the AFP on site.
Some blocked streets and set tires on fire to express their anger after a 41-year-old resident was stabbed to death in clashes late Monday with migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
In videos circulating on social media, police officers can be seen chasing dozens of migrants from their homes to the cheers of city residents, before loading them into police cars.
Others showed migrants on the ground, hands on their heads, surrounded by residents with sticks waiting for the arrival of the police.
On the Facebook page of the local group Sayeb Trottoir dedicated to the issue of illegal immigration, Lazhar Neji, working in the emergency room of a hospital in Sfax, deplored “an inhuman night […], bloody, which makes you tremble”. According to him, the hospital received between 30 and 40 migrants, including women and children. “Some were thrown from terraces, others assaulted with swords,” he said.
Several migrants were brought by the police to the site of the Sfax fair while waiting to be transferred elsewhere, Romdane Ben Amor, head of the Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), an NGO, told AFP. which follows migration issues. According to him, other migrants were taken to an area near the Libyan border. He was unable to specify the total number of migrants expelled from Sfax.
Dozens of other migrants rushed to the Sfax railway station to take trains to other Tunisian cities, noted an AFP photographer.
“The violence between Tunisian natives and black African migrants continues to escalate in Sfax, once again creating a psychosis among these last migrants”, wrote on Facebook Franck Yotedje, director of the association Afrique Intelligence, which works for the defense migrant rights.
“One of the sovereign missions of the State is the protection of people and their property. Tunisian authorities must ensure the safety of Sfax residents, Tunisians and foreigners,” he added.
The death on Monday of a resident of Sfax had sparked a torrent of reactions, often with racist overtones, calling for the expulsion of African migrants from Sfax, the starting point for a large number of illegal sea crossings to Italy. .
Tensions between residents and migrants escalated after a speech in February by President Kais Saied slamming illegal immigration and presenting it as a demographic threat to his country.
On Tuesday, Mr. Saïed affirmed that Tunisia “does not accept on its territory anyone who does not respect its laws nor to be a country of transit (to Europe) or a land of resettlement for nationals of certain African countries. “.
Most of these migrants come to Tunisia to then try to reach Europe by sea by landing clandestinely on the Italian coasts.
President Saïed has accused “criminal networks” of being behind this illegal immigration which, according to him, aims to disturb “social peace in Tunisia”.
In a press release published on Wednesday, the Sfax branch of the powerful UGTT trade union center accused the government of having aggravated the phenomenon of illegal immigration “by playing the role of policeman of the Mediterranean, intercepting the boats of illegal sub-Saharan African migrants and forwarding them to Sfax”. He called on Kaïs Saïed and his government to “find a radical solution (to the presence) of thousands of illegal sub-Saharan migrants”, and affirmed “to refuse that the region of Sfax be transformed into a place of assembly or resettlement for these migrants in a desire to please Italy and Europe”.
