Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has come under heavy criticism after state-sanctioned attacks on dark-skinned Africans in the country, with several Nigerians and Ivoriens fleeing their homes and seeking refuge in their respective embassies.
President Saied, who recently announced that sub-Saharan migrants were on a mission to weaken the country’s Islamic Arab identity, has continued to deepen discrimination and unfair prejudice against dark-skinned people from Africa.
In a statement, he said, “There is a criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape in Tunisia and some individuals have received large sums of money to give residence to sub-Saharan migrants.”
At a national security council meeting convened on the matter, Mr Saied referred to the migrants who have sustained the country’s informal economy with surplus cheap labour as “hordes of illegal migrants.” He argued that their presence in the country was a source of “violence, crime, and unacceptable acts.”
Since the announcement, hundreds of sub-Saharan migrants have been victims of targeted attacks, with many losing their homes, jobs, and freedom. Over 300 migrants have been arrested on trumped-up charges, according to Forum Tunisien Pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux (FTDES), an advocacy group in the country.
FTDES condemned the assault on the rights of migrants and called on Tunisian authorities to “fight against hate speech, discrimination, and racism against them.” The group also tasked the government to “intervene in the event of an emergency to guarantee the dignity and rights of migrants.”
The actions of the government of Tunisia are in flagrant violation of the African Charter on Human Rights and Peoples as well as their obligations under the 1951 Geneva Convention on Refugees, which Tunisia adopted in 1957.