Mass expulsions and mistreatment of migrants reported in Tunisia as tensions spike in port city

• Tensions escalated dangerously in a Tunisian port city following the detainment of three migrants in connection with the death of a local man.
• Reports emerged of retaliation against Black foreigners, mass expulsions, and alleged assaults by security forces.
• Tunisian security forces provided shelter to some migrants to protect them from retaliatory attacks, while others sought refuge at the train station in Sfax or were taken to an isolated beach near the Tunisian-Libyan border. 

Tensions spiked dangerously in a Tunisian port city this week after three migrants were detained in the death of a local man, and there were reports of retaliation against Black foreigners and accounts of mass expulsions and alleged assaults by security forces.

The people suspected in the slaying of a 41-year-old Tunisian were under investigation for premeditated murder, according to Faouzi Masmoudi, spokesman for the prosecutor’s office in the seaside city of Sfax.

Twenty-two migrants from sub-Saharan countries in Africa also were detained for questioning in connection with crimes in the area, Masmoudi said Wednesday.

Sfax, on Tunisia’s eastern coast, is a main departure point for migrants and refugees planning to cross the Mediterranean Sea to Europe. Thousands of people, mainly from sub-Saharan Africa, have poured into the city to set out in unprecedented numbers for dangerous crossings to Italy in small boats.

After the burial Tuesday of Nizar Ben Brahim Amri, the Tunisian man who was killed, residents blocked a main road, burned tires and called on authorities to return migrants to their homelands to keep the peace.

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Videos posted on social media showed crowds of local men in Sfax attempting to knock down doors and set fire to a building in what appeared to be an attempt to chase Black migrants out. Other videos showed Black people being rounded up at night and taken to police vehicles.

Tunisian security forces put some migrants in shelters to avoid vengeance attacks, while some 200 others headed to the Sfax train station to escape to Tunis, the capital, according to Radio Mosaique.

The fate of hundreds more was grimmer. Migrants reported being taken to an isolated beach near Libya’s border with armed men from both countries on each side.

A 29-year-old man from Ivory Coast said he was among 600 sub-Saharan migrants caught in what he described as a “no-man’s land” between the Mediterranean Sea and the Tunisian-Libyan land border near Ben Guerdane.

The man, who spoke to The Associated Press in a video call and shared his GPS location via WhatsApp, said he was taken there Saturday evening – two days before the death of the Tunisian man – as he waited in a safe house to board a small boat to Italy.

More migrants were taken from their homes in Sfax in the middle of the night in the following days, he claimed. The name of the man, who said he entered Tunisia legally in 2019 and worked on a golf course, is being withheld for safety reasons.

Uniformed and armed men subsequently transferred the people in his group to several police stations and National Guard bases before dropping them on the beach Sunday, he said. The man spoke to the AP Wednesday and Thursday surrounded by other Black migrants, including women and small children.

He accused the Tunisian National Guard of beating them “like animals, like slaves,” and assaulting women in the group.

“‘Go to Libya. They will kill you,'” the man claimed security officials told the migrants. “‘You’ll never see Tunisia again.'” He also claimed that Libyan security at the border fired shots into the air to keep the civilians at bay. A drone flew over them Thursday morning, he added.

Tunisian President Kais Saied railed at those who use his country as a stepping stone to Europe. The increasingly authoritarian president set off a crisis in February with a demand for urgent measures to crack down on Black Africans, claiming they were part of a plot to erase Tunisia’s identity. Some countries airlifted their citizens back home. Other migrants tried to escape by sea to Europe.

Tunisia “doesn’t tolerate being used as a transit zone or a territory for people from numerous African countries to lay down roots,” Saied said in a statement Tuesday night. In an apparent dig at Italy and Europe, he added that Tunisia “also does not accept being the guardian of borders other than its own.”

The North African country is struggling through a serious economic crisis. In recent months, several European leaders have visited Tunisia and appealed for help stemming migration while pledging hundreds of millions of euros to prop up the country’s crumbling economy.

In the first three months of 2023, Tunisia’s National Guard intercepted 13,000 migrants trying to make the journey. But more than 30,000 people who departed from Tunisia have reached European shores so far this year according to a report by the European Union’s executive commission which was seen by the AP.