Tunisia: Geo Barents survivors speak out about the violence they suffered

Since February 2023 and the racist statements made by President Kaïs Saïed, there has been widespread violence in Tunisia against exiles, whose situation worsened in July with the implementation of mass expulsions and forced transfers, particularly in the desert. At the same time, the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding with Tunisia, a "strategic partnership", providing for a budget of 105 million euros for "border management, search and rescue, the fight against smuggling and return". This is likely to make the situation of exiles even worse.

Although MSF teams are not operational in Tunisia, they are witnessing the consequences of the violence affecting exiles in the country. Indeed, many of the people taken aboard the MSF search and rescue vessel Geo Barents this summer had set sail from the Tunisian coast.

The night before I was attacked, the president called to the population through a public speech on TV and radio against black Africans. That’s when everything changed!” Boniface says. Fatima*, a 32-year-old woman, adds: “Before the president spoke, Tunisia was already bad. When he spoke saying that the blacks had to go back, then everything got worse.”

Some of the violence pre-dates February 2023, as Boniface explains:

After I arrived in Tunisia in October 2022, unidentified armed men kidnapped me and took me to a construction site and beat me for 12 days. I was tortured with a baseball bat while both my hands and feet were tied up with a long rope. They shot videos to send to my family to ask for money to pay for my freedom.”

Dangerous policies

A number of survivors described violent expulsions to the border countries of Libya and Algeria. "In Sfax, they pick up black people, with or without papers, and send them to the Algerian border", said Fatima. Another survivor recounted how he and others had been sent into the desert.

The Tunisian police don't want to see any more black people. They hate us. When they took us to Algeria, we walked for almost a week in the desert.

It is estimated that in the first six months of 2023, 56% of people arriving in Italy via the central Mediterranean embarked in Tunisia, making the country the main gateway to Europe for people seeking safety, ahead of Libya.

The recent memorandum of understanding reproduces the EU's dangerous migration policies, which are increasingly "encouraging" third countries to step up deterrence and the confinement of people trying to reach Europe, explains Juan Matias Gil, MSF's representative for search and rescue operations. "The implementation of such an agreement would systematise the violence against migrants in Tunisia and make the EU complicit in the abuse they suffer. These irresponsible migration policies put the welfare and rights of exiles last and trap them in cycles of violence, abuse and despair."

* The names of the survivors have been changed to protect their identity.