Riots in Sfax, a city where African refugees and migrants are fleeing en masse, waiting to cross into Italy
Hundreds of African refugees and migrants were taken and left in isolated, border areas of Tunisia after Monday’s killing of a man in the city of Sfax and riots that broke out there.
According to non-governmental organizations, some of them were taken by bus to isolated areas in southern Tunisia: some in an isolated, militarized area on the border with Libya, and others near the border with Algeria.
As reported by HRW, the refugees who are on the border with Libya – among them women, 3 of them pregnant, and 29 children—they are left to their own devices in extreme heat, waiting for some solution.
They are citizens of Ivory Coast, Mali, Guinea, Chad, Sudan and Senegal.
“We have nothing to eat or drink. We are in the desert,” Issa Kone, a 27-year-old from Mali, said in a phone call to AFP.
“Members of the (Tunisian) national guard arrested us in Sfax after breaking into our house,” he added. He stated that he was taken by bus near the border with Algeria along with about ten other refugees and migrants with whom he lived in Sfax.
The death on Monday of a Sfax resident during clashes with African migrants sparked a wave of violence on Tuesday and Wednesday against refugees and migrants who have taken refuge in the city, with one eyewitness commenting that the clashes between the two sides looked like ” civil war”.
The incident set fire to Sfax, a city whose residents say they are outraged by the presence of irregular migrants, who take refuge there waiting to cross into Italy.
HRW calls on the authorities to stop mass removals of migrants from Sfax
The Tunisian authorities should stop the mass removal from the city of Sfax of refugees and migrants originating from sub-Saharan African countries and provide immediate access to humanitarian organizations to those who have been sent to a dangerous area on the border with Libya, the Tunisian government announced on Thursday. Human Rights Watch
“Not only is it unconscionable to abuse and abandon people in the desert, but mass removals violate international law,” HRW’s Lauren Zibert complained.
Source :Skai
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