2023-07-05 19:52:15
4 hours ago
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A number of migrants rescued earlier from the Mediterranean
African migrants were attacked in the Tunisian city of Sfax, leaving dozens injured.
Today, Wednesday, eyewitnesses said that ethnic tensions and violence erupted in the Tunisian coastal city of Sfax, targeting African migrants from southern Western Sahara, and forcing dozens of them to be forcibly evacuated from the city.
Amid the unrest late Tuesday, police detained some of the migrants and deported them as far as the Libyan border more than 300 km away, according to a local rights group.
The Tunisian official news agency reported that the head of Tunisia’s national security and other senior security officials visited the coastal city of Sfax on July 4, after clashes between residents of the coastal city of Sfax and illegal immigrants resulted in the death of a local resident.
TAP said the officials were accompanied by the commander of the National Guard on the visit to closely monitor developments in the region in the aftermath of the July 2 violence.
It said that earlier on July 4, the Public Prosecutor’s Office at the First Instance Court of Sfax ordered the arrest of three sub-Saharan migrants suspected of involvement in the “murder” of the citizen.
It said a fourth suspect linked to the case had fled.
In the aftermath of the clashes, the TAP news agency said, the public prosecutor’s office ordered the detention of 34 sub-Saharan migrants for entering and staying in Tunisia illegally.
Unrest erupted between African migrants and local citizens, after a Tunisian man was killed on Monday during a quarrel with several migrants.
Rights groups said the latest unrest began after the funeral of a 41-year-old Tunisian man who was stabbed to death Monday in a fight with migrants that led to the arrest of three suspects, believed to be Cameroonians.
A clip circulated on the Internet showing a group of angry youths chanting, “We will avenge his death!” during the victim’s funeral.
Rights groups added that in recent revenge attacks, some migrants were thrown from balconies and attacked others with swords.
Human rights organizations indicated that women and children were among the targets.
Witnesses said that dozens were forced out of Sfax, the second largest city in North Africa, which is a main departure point for many migrants hoping to reach EU member Italy by sea to the Italian island of Lampedusa, some 130 km from Tunisian coasts.
Hundreds of residents demonstrated in the streets of Tunis on Tuesday evening, closing some streets and setting fire to tires, calling for the city to be emptied of all illegal immigrants, according to an AFP correspondent.
Videos circulating on social media showed police chasing dozens of migrants from their homes before loading them into police cars.
Other footage showed migrants lying on the ground with their hands on their heads being beaten with sticks by local residents, waiting for the police to come to collect them.
Roumdane Benomar, president of the Forum for Economic and Social Rights, a nongovernmental rights group, said that the police had taken some of the migrants to the site of the Sfax International Fair, where they were to be relocated.
He told AFP that some of the migrants had been taken to an area near the Libyan border, without being able to give exact numbers.
In another development, demonstrations erupted in the city of Sbeitla, in central Tunisia, to protest the killing of a young man at the hands of security men.
The demonstrators closed a number of the city’s roads and set fire to rubber tires. Security forces clashed with young men when they raided sports betting shops, which they said were operating illegally.
The clashes developed into the police using bullets, which led to the death of a young man.
Tunisia has recently witnessed a rise in racially motivated attacks after President Kais Saied’s statements in February in which he accused “hordes” of illegal immigrants of committing acts of violence and claiming a “criminal plot” to change the country’s demographic composition.
Tunisia has a population of 12 million and hosts an estimated 21,000 migrants from other parts of Africa, representing 0.2 percent of the population.
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