New York-based organisation, Human Rights Watch, HRW, has asked Tunisian authorities to put a stop to what it has termed, ‘collective expulsions of sub-Saharan migrants’.
According to HRW, the Tunisian government had in the past few days, deported several hundred black African migrants and asylum seekers,- children and pregnant women included- from its port city Sfax, near the Libyan border.
Reports have it that they have been left stranded and in terrible conditions in an isolated desert area.
Lauren Seibert, a migrant rights researcher and refugee at HRW had remarked that the Tunisian government should discontinue the collected expulsions and immediately enable humanitarian access to the African migrants and asylum seekers already deported to a dangerous area with little to no food and no medical assistance.
The recent unrest was provoked by the killing of a Tunisian man during a fight between Tunisians and migrants in Sfax, on Monday, July 3. Since then, tensions have kept rising, prompting a surge in racially motivated attacks.
The Human Rights organisation had additionally, urged the Tunisian government to conduct a rigorous investigation into the alleged abuses and hold accountable, the responsible security forces.
The felt tension in Tunisia has been building up ever since President Kais Saied claimed that the migrants in the country were among a conspiracy to modify the demographic composition of the North African country.
