Migration 48

Migration: The Wretched of the Borders

The Mediterranean is becoming a graveyard as Europe looks to outsource the management of its borders, dealing out bribes to countries at its southern and eastern gateways. Stripped of their humanity, migrants are reduced to grim statistics. Journalists within the network Independent Media on the Arab World present readers with a series of articles exposing the exorbitant price paid by concerned populations, against their will.

From dignity to racial purity? Saied’s anti-“African” agenda

In a shocking display of President Kais Saied’s populist politics and anti-migrant crackdown, Tunisian police forcibly dismantled a protest camp of asylum seekers in Tunis early on May 3rd, expelling around 500 black migrants to the Algerian and Libyan borders without food or water. This brutal action underscores the Tunisian government’s increasingly explicit agenda of racial purification targeting sub-Saharan Africans, which human rights groups condemn as blatant anti-Black racism cloaked in anti-immigrant rhetoric.

The struggle is twofold for LGBT migrants in Tunisia

Fleeing persecution in their countries of origin, LGBT migrants set off in the hopes of finding safety elsewhere. During their journey across country borders, they are exposed to extreme violence, and sexual abuse in particular. Their ordeal continues when they arrive in Tunisia, where they are confronted with other forms of abuse. For these individuals, the future does not lie in Tunisia. But their safe passage to another country requires the support of the UNHCR.

EU-Tunisia: Why the Dutch were compelled to strike a deal with an autocrat

On July 16, the European Commission signed a ‘Memorandum of Understanding’ with Tunisia, granting the country millions of euros to prevent migrants and refugees from crossing the Mediterranean to seek shelter in Europe. But why did the Dutch prime minister play a pioneering role in the conclusion of the Tunisia deal, if only a small proportion of the migrants along this route travel on to the Netherlands? This analysis examines how the Dutch anti-migration policy became self-evident.

Work in Tunisia: Regularizing the status of undocumented immigrants

Although they are accused of stealing jobs from Tunisians, undocumented immigrants nevertheless respond to a labor shortage across a number sectors that are spurned by the local workforce. Regularizing the status of foreign workers in Tunisia would not only put an end to the scapegoating and forceful expulsion endured by immigrants, but would also stem the exploitation to which they are exposed.

Diplomacy: Friends of Kais Saied’s Tunisia

Recent statements by high officials in the West—namely Giorgia Meloni and Emmanuel Macron—in addition to increased contact with Qatar are burying the aspirations to turn away from Tunisia’s traditional western allies, as proposed by supporters of the current regime. Close up on the geopolitics of president Kais Saied.

Sub-Saharans in Tunisia: The untruths expounded by president Kais Saied

Tunisia’s president has accused civil society of fomenting the country’s colonization by undocumented migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. Kais Saied denounces those who wish to « change the demographic composition » of Tunisia, evoking their « violence and criminality ». His proof? Contacted by Nawaat, the Interior Ministry affirmed that it does not have statistics regarding the number of migrants implicated in criminal activities. A glimpse at the facts exposes the president’s xenophobic fiction for what it is.