![]() A man from Benin was killed in May and a Tunisian man on July 3. Tensions have been high in Sfax for months as Tunisian residents campaigned for African foreigners to leave, escalating to recent attacks against Black Africans and clashes with Tunisians. National guard and military forces rapidly transported them 300 kilometers to Ben Guerdane, then to the Libya border, where they were effectively trapped in what they described as a buffer zone from which they could neither enter Libya nor return to Tunisia. People interviewed said they had been arrested in raids by police, national guard, or military in and near Sfax, a port city southeast of the capital, Tunis. At least six expelled people were asylum seekers registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while at least two adults had consular cards identifying them as students in Tunisia. The people expelled were of many African nationalities – Ivorian, Cameroonian, Malian, Guinean, Chadian, Sudanese, Senegalese, and others – and included at least 29 children and three pregnant women, interviewees said. They arrived in at least four different groups, ranging in size. They could not give an exact number, but estimated that Tunisian authorities had expelled between 500 and 700 people since July 2 to the border area, around 35 kilometers east of the town Ben Guerdane. ![]() Interviewees’ names are not used for their protection. “Not only is it unconscionable to abuse people and abandon them in the desert, but collective expulsions violate international law.”īetween July 2 and 6, Human Rights Watch interviewed five people by phone who had been expelled, including an Ivorian asylum seeker and four migrants: two Ivorian men, a Cameroonian man, and a 16-year-old Cameroonian girl. “The Tunisian government should halt collective expulsions and urgently enable humanitarian access to the African migrants and asylum seekers already expelled to a dangerous area at the Tunisia-Libya border, with little food and no medical assistance,” said Lauren Seibert, refugee and migrant rights researcher at Human Rights Watch. Many reported violence by authorities during arrest or expulsion. The group includes people with both regular and irregular legal status in Tunisia, expelled without due process. (Tunis) – Tunisian security forces have collectively expelled several hundred Black African migrants and asylum seekers, including children and pregnant women, since Jto a remote, militarized buffer zone at the Tunisia- Libya border, Human Rights Watch said today. Women and children expelled by Tunisian authorities to the Libyan border stand by the shore, July 6, 2023.
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