Thursday, July 27, 2023

We are dying': Migrants' plea from Libya-Tunisia border

AFP
Wed, July 26, 2023 at 2:12 PM MDT·3 min read

About 140 migrants are stranded in a buffer zone between Libya and Tunisia 
(Mahmud TURKIA)

African migrants pleaded to be saved from a desert zone between Libya and Tunisia on Wednesday, weeks after Tunisian authorities allegedly dumped dozens of them there with nothing.

"We are dying. We are dying by the minute," a Nigerian who wanted to be identified only by his first name, George, told AFP.

"Please, I'm begging you. Take us from here now," said George, 43. "Come and rescue us from this place."

On Tuesday Libya's interior ministry said the bodies of five African migrants had been found near Tunisia's border.

The group of about 140 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are the latest to be taken to Tunisia's borderlands with Libya or Algeria, according to border guards, migrants and NGO workers who reported previous cases.

"We don't know where we are living here. We've been suffering with no food and no water," George said at the migrants' makeshift camp among barbed wire 30 metres (33 yards) from a Libyan border post on the seashore at Ras Jedir.

He said he had been working as a barber for 18 months in the Tunisian coastal city of Sfax, where his wife and baby remained after he was forced out.

"The Tunisian police, they aim their weapons... and say we are terrorists," George said.

The Libyans tell the migrants not to go further into their territory, leaving them "stuck in the middle," George said, as a heatwave grips the Mediterranean.

Through the Red Crescent the Libyans have, however, brought them some food and water, which they share among themselves.

Another migrant, Fatima, 36, from Niger, said Tunisian soldiers "took everything from us", including their mobile phones, and left them there. She also declined to give a last name.

Some held up torn pieces of cardboard with hand-written messages. One asked the International Organization for Migration to "help please".

"We are humans," another said.

- Racial tensions -

In early July, hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were driven out of the Tunisian port city of Sfax as racial tensions flared following the death of a Tunisian man in a clash between locals and migrants.

At its closest point, near Sfax, Tunisia is only about 130 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa. The North African country is a gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting perilous sea voyages in hopes of a better life in Europe.

Mubarak Adam Mohamad, 24, said he had fled the war in Sudan for Libya before reaching Tunisia.

"I was arrested by the police in Sfax and brought here by force," he told AFP, appealing for "regional and international organisations" to rescue them.

Medecins du Monde, an aid group, called on Tunisian authorities to facilitate humanitarian access.

"These people find themselves in a situation of great vulnerability," the group said in a statement.

Human Rights Watch said up to 1,200 black Africans were "expelled or forcibly transferred by Tunisian security forces" to the country's desert border regions with Libya and Algeria this month.

In mid-July the Tunisian Red Crescent said it had provided shelter to at least 630 migrants who had been taken after July 3 to Ras Jedir, north of Al-Assah.

Around the same time, Libyan border guards also said they rescued dozens of migrants left in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water and food.

An AFP team at the time saw migrants who were visibly exhausted and dehydrated, sitting or lying on the sand and using shrubs to try and shield themselves from the heat that topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit).

The group were in an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah.

str-rb/fka/it/jsa



Libya authorities find migrants' bodies near Tunisia border


AFP
Tue, July 25, 2023 

Migrants who said they were left abandoned in the desert by Tunisian authorities try to shelter from the heat near Al-Assah, Libya on July 16, 2023 (Mahmud Turkia)

Libyan border guards have recovered the bodies of several migrants from a desert area where many have reportedly been forcibly taken by Tunisian authorities, Tripoli's interior ministry said Tuesday.

The border agents "have discovered five unidentified bodies of irregular migrants of African origin during a patrol in the Dahr al-Khass area" near the Tunisian boundary, the interior ministry said in a statement.

Since mid-July, Libyan border guards have rescued dozens of migrants who said Tunisian authorities had taken them to an uninhabited area near Al-Assah, 150 kilometres (93 miles) west of Tripoli and around 15 kilometres inside Libyan territory.

AFP correspondents have seen groups of migrants visibly exhausted and dehydrated after trekking through the desert in the scorching summer heat.

Online videos published by border agents show migrants arriving by foot across the Tunisian border.

In early July, hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were driven out of the Tunisian port city of Sfax as racial tensions flared following the death of a Tunisian man in a clash between locals and migrants.

About 130 kilometres from the Italian island of Lampedusa, Tunisia is a gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting dangerous sea voyages in hopes of a better life in Europe.

On July 18, independent UN experts urged Tunisia to stop the "collective expulsions" of migrants, following reports that dozens had been left by Tunisian police in the desert near Libya.

"We call on the authorities to immediately halt any further deportations and to continue and expand humanitarian access to a dangerous area on the Tunisian-Libyan border where many, including pregnant women and children, have already been deported," the expert panel said in a statement.

In Libya, human traffickers have long profited from the chaos since the 2011 overthrow of dictator Moamer Kadhafi, and the country has faced accusations of migrant abuse.

Rights groups have alleged horrific treatment of migrants at the hands of smuggling gangs and inside state-run detention centres. Authorities and armed groups operating under state auspices have repeatedly been accused of torture, rape and other abuses.

The country hosts an estimated 600,000 sub-Saharan African migrants.

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