Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown
NEWS WIRES
Sat, 4 March 2023
Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown
Some 300 West African migrants were set to leave Tunisia on repatriation flights Saturday, fearful of a wave of violence since President Kais Saied delivered a controversial tirade last month.
In his February 21 speech, Saied ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic makeup".
Saied charged that migrants were behind most crime in the North African country, fuelling a spate of sackings, evictions and physical attacks against the community.
The African Union expressed "deep shock and concern at the form and substance" of Saied's remarks, while governments in sub-Saharan Africa scrambled to organise the repatriation of hundreds of fearful nationals who flocked to their embassies for help.
A first group of 50 Guineans were flown home on Wednesday, while Ivory Coast and Mali prepared to repatriate a combined 295 of their citizens on special flights on Saturday, diplomats and community organisers said.
He had said earlier that the whole community was living in fear.
"They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice."
(AFP)
NEWS WIRES
Sat, 4 March 2023
Hundreds of West African migrants flee Tunisia after President Saied’s controversial crackdown
Some 300 West African migrants were set to leave Tunisia on repatriation flights Saturday, fearful of a wave of violence since President Kais Saied delivered a controversial tirade last month.
In his February 21 speech, Saied ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic makeup".
Saied charged that migrants were behind most crime in the North African country, fuelling a spate of sackings, evictions and physical attacks against the community.
The African Union expressed "deep shock and concern at the form and substance" of Saied's remarks, while governments in sub-Saharan Africa scrambled to organise the repatriation of hundreds of fearful nationals who flocked to their embassies for help.
A first group of 50 Guineans were flown home on Wednesday, while Ivory Coast and Mali prepared to repatriate a combined 295 of their citizens on special flights on Saturday, diplomats and community organisers said.
He had said earlier that the whole community was living in fear.
"They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice."
(AFP)
Copyright © africanewsFETHI BELAID/AFP or licensors
By Rédaction Africanews
TUNISIA
A steady flow of taxis has rolled up outside the Ivorian embassy in Tunis in recent days, depositing dozens of migrants who say they no longer feel safe amid an officially sanctioned climate of fear.
After a wave of arrests in recent weeks, President Kais Saied gave a speech on Tuesday that critics said was openly racist.
Many sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia are now heading for the exit.
"We want to go home," said Constant, who arrived at the embassy early on Friday in the hope of getting her paperwork in order.
In his speech Saied had ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was underway "to change Tunisia's demographic make-up".
His comments, praised by French far-right former presidential candidate Eric Zemmour, were seen by many as inciting violence against sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia legally or illegally.
Aboubacar Dobe, head of a radio station for French-speaking migrants, said it was "clear that things are different since Saied's speech".
The head of Radio Libre Francophone said he had received threatening phone calls.
"When it was just the (recently created far-right) Tunisian Nationalist Party or on social media, people thought the state would protect them," he said.
"Now, they feel abandoned."
The African Union also expressed concern following Saied's remarks on migrants, calling on its member states to "refrain from racialised hate speech that could bring people to harm".
On Saturday, hundreds of protesters marched down Avenue Habib Bourguiba in central Tunis, chanting: "Down with fascism, Tunisia is an African country.
"President of shame, apologise," they demanded of Saied.
- Harassment and intimidation -
Outside the Ivorian embassy, one couple arrived after being evicted from their apartment, their worldly belongings in backpacks and suitcases.
Three other young women were dropped off by a smartly dressed Tunisian woman.
"They've been working at my beauty salon for two years," she said. "They're leaving now because they don't feel safe."
Constant, who has been unemployed for six months, said she has set up a WhatsApp group for Ivorians wanting to go home.
"I'm here to organise an exit permit, because I've overstayed by four years and I can't afford to pay the fine" of more than 1,000 euros ($1,055), she said.
Other migrants spoke of harassment and intimidation, including fires lit outside their buildings or attempts to break in.
"The landlords are kicking us out; people beat us up or mistreat us," said Wilfrid Badia, 34, who has spent six years in the North African country eking out a living on casual jobs.
"To be safe, we decided to come to the embassy to sign up to go home."
Hosni Maati, a lawyer who helps an association for Ivorians in Tunisia, said that "since the president's speech, (Tunisians) have totally lost it".
Maati said sub-Saharan Africans had been living without papers in Tunisia for years as authorities turned a blind eye.
Bureaucratic obstacles prevented many from regularising their status, making them easy targets for exploitation by unscrupulous employers as cheap labour.
- 'Mob justice' -
Authorities began a wave of arrests targeting migrants two weeks ago and have so far detained around 400 people, rights groups say. Most have since been released.
"You can't solve such a complex situation by making a speech and arresting people left, right and centre," Maati said.
Jean Bedel Gnabli, deputy head of an association for sub-Saharan migrants, said the whole community -- also including Senegalese, Guineans, Congolese and Comorans -- was living in fear.
"They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice," he said.
Even sub-Saharan African students at Tunisian universities, who in principle are in the country legally, have been affected.
AESAT, an association that supports them, sent out a message this week urging them "not to go out, even to go to class, until authorities ensure we are properly protected from these attacks".
In the Bhar Lazreg neighbourhood of north Tunis, streets of informal African restaurants and barber shops have closed, apparently for good.
A creche that had taken care of dozens of African children was nowhere to be seen.
Ivorians Blede Dibe and Michel Yere worked manual jobs in the neighbourhood until they found themselves abruptly unemployed two weeks ago.
But they agreed there was little point in returning to their home country.
"Go back to do what? There's no work for us in Ivory Coast," they said in unison.
Sub-Saharan Africans desperate to leave Tunisia after attacks
Advocacy groups have documented an increase in attacks against sub-Saharan Africans following comments from Tunisia’s president.
By Khemaies Ben Braiek
Published On 4 Mar 2023
Tunis, Tunisia – Nikki Yanga left the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Tunisia five months ago, dreaming of a better life.
There was the potential to work in Tunisia itself, or to use the North African country as a springboard to travel to Europe, as many migrants and refugees have done in the past.
Those dreams have now been turned upside down. Instead, her only hope is that she can make it back home, away from a rising tide of racism in Tunisia that has emerged following anti-migrant statements issued by President Kais Saied.
Yanga spoke to Al Jazeera from outside the Congolese embassy as she fearfully waited to hear if she had been approved for voluntary repatriation, a return to a country she had left after the death of her father.
“There was nothing left for me in the DR Congo; I heard that Tunisia was a beautiful and tolerant country, so I decided to travel,” Yanga explained.
With some friends, Yanga says that she had journeyed overland, passing through several countries, before crossing the border from Algeria to Tunisia with a group of sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees, aided by a people smuggler, three months ago.
“There were approximately 20 of us from the DR Congo, Guinea and the Ivory Coast, and I paid 250 euros ($266) to the smuggler,” Yanga said.
However, her plans soon fell apart, as she was unable to find a job, and, without money, unable to buy enough food or rent a home.
“I spent each day looking for work or for someone to help me find a place to stay … [but] I was constantly harassed by police,” Yanga said.
Presidential incitement
Yanga said her life in Tunisia has progressively worsened, particularly following President Saied’s February 21 comments at the country’s National Security Council, in which he said migration from sub-Saharan Africa aimed to change Tunisia’s national identity.
“The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations,” Saied, who has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn since suspending parliament and dissolving the government in July 2021, said.
He added that undocumented immigration to Tunisia had led to violence and crime, and needed to end quickly.
Official figures show that there are approximately 21,000 undocumented Africans in Tunisia.
Those comments, and Saied’s rhetoric since then, have been denounced by the president’s opponents and the African Union, and have led to what has been described by advocacy groups as a racist backlash against sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia, as well as Black Tunisians, particularly on social media.
The far-right Tunisian National Party has also led a campaign calling for the expulsion of sub-Saharan African immigrants, framing immigration to Tunisia from other parts of Africa as being part of an effort to initiate demographic change in the country, an idea that has parallels with the European far right’s “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which posits that immigration from Africa and Asia is aimed at replacing white people in Europe.
Migrants and refugees have used social media to show the consequences of some of that rhetoric.
Videos show physical attacks on the people themselves, as well as on their homes.
Tunisian security forces, however, appear to be targeting the migrants themselves, rather than the perpetrators of the attacks.
According to Lawyers Without Borders, an advocacy group, approximately 800 sub-Saharan Africans have been arrested. Others have been evicted from homes they had rented, or have lost their jobs.
Yanga herself says that she has since been attacked by two men who took a bag containing her passport.
“The attack took place a few days after the Tunisian president spoke,” Yanga said. “His speech was inciteful against us, and its results have begun to appear.”
With a continuing security clampdown on illegal immigration, and, fearful of being imprisoned because of her immigration status, Yanga says that she has not gone to the police following the attack.
Instead, she is hoping that the DR Congo will follow in the footsteps of other African countries, such as Guinea and the Ivory Coast, in working to bring her home.
KEEP READING
Advocacy groups have documented an increase in attacks against sub-Saharan Africans following comments from Tunisia’s president.
Nikki Yanga waits outside the embassy of the Democratic Republic of the Congo in Tunis, in the hope that she will be repatriated to her home country [Khemaies Ben Braiek/Al Jazeera]
By Khemaies Ben Braiek
Published On 4 Mar 2023
Tunis, Tunisia – Nikki Yanga left the Democratic Republic of the Congo for Tunisia five months ago, dreaming of a better life.
There was the potential to work in Tunisia itself, or to use the North African country as a springboard to travel to Europe, as many migrants and refugees have done in the past.
Those dreams have now been turned upside down. Instead, her only hope is that she can make it back home, away from a rising tide of racism in Tunisia that has emerged following anti-migrant statements issued by President Kais Saied.
Yanga spoke to Al Jazeera from outside the Congolese embassy as she fearfully waited to hear if she had been approved for voluntary repatriation, a return to a country she had left after the death of her father.
“There was nothing left for me in the DR Congo; I heard that Tunisia was a beautiful and tolerant country, so I decided to travel,” Yanga explained.
With some friends, Yanga says that she had journeyed overland, passing through several countries, before crossing the border from Algeria to Tunisia with a group of sub-Saharan African migrants and refugees, aided by a people smuggler, three months ago.
“There were approximately 20 of us from the DR Congo, Guinea and the Ivory Coast, and I paid 250 euros ($266) to the smuggler,” Yanga said.
However, her plans soon fell apart, as she was unable to find a job, and, without money, unable to buy enough food or rent a home.
“I spent each day looking for work or for someone to help me find a place to stay … [but] I was constantly harassed by police,” Yanga said.
Presidential incitement
Yanga said her life in Tunisia has progressively worsened, particularly following President Saied’s February 21 comments at the country’s National Security Council, in which he said migration from sub-Saharan Africa aimed to change Tunisia’s national identity.
“The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations,” Saied, who has taken an increasingly authoritarian turn since suspending parliament and dissolving the government in July 2021, said.
He added that undocumented immigration to Tunisia had led to violence and crime, and needed to end quickly.
Official figures show that there are approximately 21,000 undocumented Africans in Tunisia.
Those comments, and Saied’s rhetoric since then, have been denounced by the president’s opponents and the African Union, and have led to what has been described by advocacy groups as a racist backlash against sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia, as well as Black Tunisians, particularly on social media.
The far-right Tunisian National Party has also led a campaign calling for the expulsion of sub-Saharan African immigrants, framing immigration to Tunisia from other parts of Africa as being part of an effort to initiate demographic change in the country, an idea that has parallels with the European far right’s “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory, which posits that immigration from Africa and Asia is aimed at replacing white people in Europe.
Migrants and refugees have used social media to show the consequences of some of that rhetoric.
Videos show physical attacks on the people themselves, as well as on their homes.
Tunisian security forces, however, appear to be targeting the migrants themselves, rather than the perpetrators of the attacks.
According to Lawyers Without Borders, an advocacy group, approximately 800 sub-Saharan Africans have been arrested. Others have been evicted from homes they had rented, or have lost their jobs.
Yanga herself says that she has since been attacked by two men who took a bag containing her passport.
“The attack took place a few days after the Tunisian president spoke,” Yanga said. “His speech was inciteful against us, and its results have begun to appear.”
With a continuing security clampdown on illegal immigration, and, fearful of being imprisoned because of her immigration status, Yanga says that she has not gone to the police following the attack.
Instead, she is hoping that the DR Congo will follow in the footsteps of other African countries, such as Guinea and the Ivory Coast, in working to bring her home.
KEEP READING
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