Human Rights Watch called on the European Union to stop supporting Tunisia’s migration control efforts on Wednesday, claiming that the country’s security services had engaged in “serious abuses” toward black African migrants.
The New York-based watchdog stated that it had spoken with over 20 migrants and asylum seekers since March, and that almost all of them had complained of “human rights violations at the hands of Tunisian authorities.”
This month, “up to 1,200 black Africans were forcibly transferred or expelled by Tunisian security forces” to the country’s desert border regions with Libya and Algeria.
Numerous migrants who were obviously weary and dehydrated were rescued by Libyan border guards, according to AFP correspondents on Sunday. They said Tunisian officials had taken them there.
This came after NGOs and witnesses provided AFP with testimonies a few days after a large number of people were forcibly removed from the Tunisian port city of Sfax in early July.
On Sunday, the EU and Tunisia signed a memorandum of understanding for a “strategic and comprehensive partnership” on irregular migration, economic development and renewable energy.
For migrants and asylum seekers trying perilous sea crossings to Europe, Tunisia is a gateway located around 130 kilometers (80 miles) from the Italian island of Lampedusa.
Leaders in Europe are concerned about both the flow and Tunisia’s economic difficulties.
The seven migrants who were forcibly removed, according to HRW, claimed that “the military and national guard left them in the desert with inadequate food and water. Some were returned to Tunisia by Tunisian authorities a week later, but others required assistance or remained missing.
The expulsions took place as racial tensions rose following the death of a Tunisian man on July 3 during an altercation between locals and migrants in Sfax.
In February, President Kais Saied accused “hordes” of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa of bringing violence, alleging a “criminal plot” to alter the demographics of the country. HRW claimed that the majority of the violations it documented followed.
“Documented abuses include beatings, use of excessive force, some cases of torture, arbitrary arrests and detention, collective expulsions, dangerous actions at sea, forced evictions, and theft of money and belongings,” HRW said in its report.
Saied last week said that what Tunisia offered migrants “is better than what they find elsewhere”. But he added: “We refuse to be a land of transit or a land of settlement.”
According to the agreement reached on Sunday, Tunis will get equipment and money worth 105 million euros ($118 million) from the EU in exchange for the voluntary return of 6,000 sub-Saharan Africans.
According to HRW, EU states should hold off on supporting border and migratory control under that agreement “until a thorough human rights impact assessment is carried out.”
