Police in Tunisia’s capital, Tunis, have forcefully removed a group homeless sub-Saharan Africans had been camping outside of the UN buildings of the International Organisation for Migration (OIM) and the UN Refugee Agency (HCR) for several weeks.
Teargas was reportedly fired on Tuesday and batons used to remove people.
The group included people from Niger, Sudan, Guinea and Ivory Coast.
One of the migrants told an RFI correspondent: “I tried to film some videos, but I couldn’t do much. There was a lot of gas. It was hard. The Sudanese were throwing stones. The policemen were just shooting gas.”
Other journalists have been tweeting from the scene of the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) office, some saying that a camp where migrants had gathered had been completely destroyed.
Police have fired tear gas, beaten and arrested many migrants and refugees in the past hour. Tensions have been rising as they have struggled to communicate with @UNHCR, from their side they say UNHCR has been unresponsive, UNHCR says contrary.– Elizia Volkmann (@EliziaVolkmann) April 11, 2023
Freelance reporter Elizia Volkmann tweeted: “Police have fired tear gas, beaten and arrested many migrants and refugees in the past hour. Tensions have been rising as they have struggled to communicate with @UNHCR, from their side they say UNHCR has been unresponsive, UNHCR says the contrary.”
Another freelance journalist, Simon Cordall, tweeted: “Devastation here. The camp’s destroyed, with people’s goods being taken away as rubbish.”
Devastation here. The camp’s destroyed, with people’s goods being taken away as rubbish.#Tunisia pic.twitter.com/xgfZhR5CA5— Simon S. Cordall (@IgnitionUK) April 11, 2023
Most of these African migrants have been waiting for repatriation after the Tunisian President Kais Saied claimed they were trying to damage the country, unleashing a wave of violence against them.
He said that the migrants were part of a conspiracy to change the demographic composition of the North African country, which is predominantly an Arab-Muslim culture.
Saied later denied inciting hatred.