Tunisia: Government dumps African migrants at Libya border
Hundreds of Tunisian migrants – abandoned by the government- were transferred to the Libyan border on Saturday 8 July, according to the london based Middle East Monitor (MEMO).
The unusual migration flurry has doubled on top of the already 12% increase in migration this year in the Mediterranean due to the unstable economy within North Africa, Europe Border Agency’s data recorded.
With migration increasing more and more and government intervention being unfavourable for both its future economic state and the requests of Europe, masses of citizens are arriving in small coastal towns – such as Sfax, according to MEMO.
Within these towns, violence is becoming a huge problem as travelers have accused permanent residents of racial abuse, whilst residents have complained of disturbances due to the high influx of people wanting to travel through reaching the Med Sea.
Migrants are gathering at this site in the hope of being human trafficked via boat to Europe.
Thousands of undocumented migrants have also traveled through Tunisia to reach these coastal towns, increasing the concerns in Europe as migration hits an all-time high from North Africa.
Italian PM Giorgia Meloni and Dutch PM Mark Rutte were some of the EU leaders that visited Tunisia recently to discuss the $1 billion in financial aid to help save the country’s economy and stop mass migration leaving Tunisia, and landing on European countries’ doorsteps. In total, the EU’s contribution, along with Italy’s amounts to around 1.7bn USD.
Tunisian rights groups labelled the monetary draft as ‘blackmail’, and not actually saving the migrants from the border crisis, where Tunisian President Kais Saied has left them.
The monetary aid is an attempt to help Tunisia police the border and build up their economy decreasing the mass migration to stop both the decline in Northern Africa’s economy and overwhelming Western European countries.
Saied also pushed back on an EU-Turkey-style partnership by saying the country would not act as “Europe’s bodyguard”.
The intervention of EU financial aid was not meant for the Tunisian government to dispose of the mass migration elsewhere, but to help build up the economy keeping citizens in North Africa bettering their economy, rather than losing all of its people.
The ongoing talks of financial aid are to change the problem at hand, however, as it stands, the EU is still in jeopardy of mass migration if the economic state of Tunisia continues to worsen.
MEMO/Reuters
