Praised for its “feats” by Italy’s extreme right, the immigration policy implemented by President Kais Saied builds off a strategy whose objectives are twofold. Here is how the government has succeeded in killing two birds with one stone.

Praised for its “feats” by Italy’s extreme right, the immigration policy implemented by President Kais Saied builds off a strategy whose objectives are twofold. Here is how the government has succeeded in killing two birds with one stone.
“Even dogs deserve a more decent life,” says a young Sudanese man, one of thousands who have arrived in Tunisia in the past months. In Tunis’ northern suburb of Lac 1, a makeshift camp has sprung up, a sprawl of sheet metal tents, tarps and used blankets spread across the ground. The contrast with the neighborhood’s ostentatious architecture is glaring.
For weeks, refugees and asylum seekers demonstrated outside UNHCR headquarters in Tunis. Young men, women and children camped out in make-shift tents, giving voice to their anger and demanding dignity. And to be evacuated out of Tunisia. A crisis that reveals but the tip of the iceberg in the management of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers who disembark onto Tunisia’s shores.
On March 21, 2019, the Medenine refugee shelter closed its doors. Tunisia Red Crescent’s regional committee called for the closure two weeks after the protest movement carried out by a group of immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers on March 7. Protesters had left the center and set out on foot towards the Libyan border, calling attention to catastrophic conditions at the center, a facility which houses 210 occupants in spite of a 100-person capacity. It was here where, on March 11, a 15 year-old asylum seeker attempted suicide by cutting his wrists. Nawaat met with some of its residents to uncover the truth about this shelter.
They arrived in La Marsa from Choucha refugee camp in June 2017, and were supposed to stay for a few days time while their situation was worked out. But still today, the 34 exiles remain in La Marsa. After fleeing Libya in 2011, their asylum applications were rejected in 2012 by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). They eagerly hoped for the re-examination of their files during the six years they spent in Choucha. Eight months after their arrival in La Marsa’s youth center, their living conditions have severely deteriorated and the competent authorities have abandoned their case.
As civil society and political forces across the Mediterranean debate Europe’s Agenda on Migration, in Tunisia it is the absence of a comprehensive national strategy, cohesive immigration legislation and designated State institutions which is at the heart of migration discussions.
Dimanche soir une centaine de migrants ont quitté le camp de Choucha pour venir manifester à Tunis. Ils sont arrivés lundi matin et se sont dirigés vers la Place des Droits de l’Homme où ils ont commencé à manifester.