Migrant Dreams Become Nightmares in Tunisia Under Anti-Migration Policies

Many migrants find that their path to Europe culminates in a terrible reality among the olive trees along the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. Less than 100 miles from the Italian islands defining the EU’s outside limits, these aspirations have become nightmares in Tunisia.

Thousands of men, women, and children wait for an opportunity to cross to Europe under improvised tents. Having fled conflict, poverty, climate change, or persecution, they have ended up stranded in Tunisia, unable to reach Europe or pay to go back home. Officially, the UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) estimates 15,000 to 20,000 migrants are stranded in rural olive groves close to Tunisia’s central coast.

Tight anti-migration rules in both Tunisia and Europe directly lead to this situation. Particularly important in forming these policies are right-wing MPs in the EU who made major gains in the most recent legislative elections. The camps have grown since last year as police initiatives to stop Mediterranean immigrants get more aggressive.

Many were driven to live in rural regions like the beach north of the city when authorities destroyed migrant tents in Sfax, Tunisia’s second-largest city, last summer. Among them is 16-year-old Mory Keita of Ivory Coast, who wound himself in a camp called Kilometer-19, infamous for violence and regular police searches.

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Keita’s Pursuit of a Better Life

Hoping to finally reach France for a brighter future, Keita left his flood-prone area close to Abidjan in September to join a friend in Tunisia. To get him through Mali and Algeria, he paid a smuggler 400,000 Central African Francs ($656). Tunisia’s coast guard intercepted him and sent him back without processing, even though he managed to board a boat heading for Europe in March.

Supported by European money and encouragement, Tunisia’s coast guard has stopped about 53,000 migrants from crossing the Mediterranean between January and May this year, compared to 23,000 in the same period last year. This initiative aims at controlling migration and fits the objectives stated in a 1 billion euro agreement between Tunisia and the EU last summer. But the resultant logjam has caused rising local and migrant tensions as well as hopelessness.

Humanitarian and local reversals

Local populations and civil society organizations demanding their deportation have responded negatively to the rising migrant population close to Tunisia’s central coastline. To police the area, politicians have even urged creating “citizen militias.” Comments made by President Kais Saied, who asserted migrants were part of a plot to wipe out Tunisian identity, aggravate this antagonism.

Targeting migrants and the emergence of racist discourse against black migrants and Tunisians has caused great worry among the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Most migrants arriving from North Africa to Italy this year are from Syria, Bangladesh, or Tunisia itself. Tunisia has been accused of deporting migrants to its borders with Libya and Algeria, where many have perished.

Response of European leaders

Notwithstanding these humanitarian issues, European officials such as Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni have hailed the 2023 agreement with Tunisia as a migration management model. The EU has kept supporting Tunisia in spite of worries about a democratic backslide and the detention of migrant activists and reporters.

A former member of the Tunisian parliament, Majdi Karbai, attacked the EU’s cooperation with Tunisia, claiming it compromises democracy and human rights. Migrants will probably keep passing through Tunisia; President Saied will use their suffering to support his populist agenda and get more European help.