The human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) speaks of “serious abuse” by security forces in Tunisia. You have documented corresponding reports from migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from countries south of the Sahara. “Beatings, excessive use of force, some instances of torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, mass expulsions, dangerous actions at sea, forced evictions and theft of money and personal belongings” were mentioned, HRW said.
According to HRW, since March it has been collecting testimonies from more than 20 people who had become victims of “human rights violations by the Tunisian authorities”. According to the human rights activists, seven of those questioned belonged to a group of 1,200 migrants “who were expelled by Tunisian security forces at the beginning of July and forcibly brought to the borders with Libya and Algeria” in desert regions.
Migrants on Sunday in the Tunisian desert in the border area with Libya Photo: Mahmud Turkia/AFP
According to HRW, most of the documented human rights abuses have followed statements by Tunisian President Kais Saied, who in February accused “hordes” of migrants of “criminal conspiracy”.
Libyan border guards rescue migrants
According to journalists from the AFP news agency, Libyan border guards rescued numerous exhausted and dehydrated migrants from the desert border area on Sunday. They were left there without food, water or shelter. According to border officials, people were abandoned by Tunisian police.
A Libyan border guard gives a migrant water Image: Mahmud Turkia/AFP
The Libyan Ministry of the Interior said it could prove the “evictions by the Tunisian authorities towards the Libyan border”. The Ministry published a video on the Facebook online service in which refugees tell their stories.
After clashes with residents of the Tunisian port of Sfax, hundreds of African migrants and refugees were recently driven into the desert and other inhospitable areas. Sfax is one of the ports of departure for people from African countries who set out from there in boats towards Europe. The second largest city in Tunisia is around 130 kilometers from the Italian Mediterranean island of Lampedusa.
EU should stop financial aid
Faced with the aggressive behavior of the Tunisian authorities, Human Rights Watch called on the European Union (EU) to withhold its support for migration and border management in Tunisia until the human rights situation in the North African country has been properly examined. “By funding security forces who carry out abuses in migration control, the EU shares responsibility for the plight of migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers in Tunisia,” said Lauren Seibert, researcher in refugee and migrant rights at Human Rights Watch.
These migrants and refugees were picked up by the Tunisian coast guard in the Mediterranean at the end of April and taken to Sfax Photo: REUTERS
The EU signed a comprehensive migration agreement with Tunisia on Sunday. It envisages massive EU financial aid, in return Tunisia should take stronger action against irregular migration.
The UN also admonished Tunis
United Nations (UN) experts called on the government in Tunis to take immediate steps “to end racist hate speech in the country” and to protect sub-Saharan migrants from violence, investigate reported acts of violence and restrict victims’ access to the to ensure justice. The Tunisian authorities should also continue and expand humanitarian access to the “dangerous Tunisian-Libyan border area” to which many people, including pregnant women and children, have already been deported, a statement said.
Its signatories include staff from the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the Working Group on People from Africa, and three special rapporteurs, including the special rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, Felipe González Morales.
se/kle (afp, hrw.org, epd)