Racial tensions in the Tunisian coastal city of Sfax flared into violence targeting migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, dozens of whom were forcibly evicted from the city, witnesses said Wednesday.
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Amid the disturbances late Tuesday, police detained some and deported them as far away as the Libyan border more than 300 kilometres (over 200 miles), according to a local rights group.
The latest unrest started after the funeral of a 41-year-old Tunisian man who was stabbed to death Monday in an altercation with migrants, which led to the arrests of three suspects from Cameroon.
“We are going to avenge his death!” young people chanted at the victim’s funeral, according to video footage published online.
Sfax, the North African country’s second-largest city, is a departure point for many migrants hoping to reach EU member Italy by sea, usually the island of Lampedusa about 130 kilometres (80 miles) away.
Hundreds of residents massed in the streets late Tuesday demanding the eviction of all illegal migrants, said an AFP correspondent. Some blockaded streets and set tyres ablaze.
Videos shared on social media showed police chasing dozens of migrants from their homes to the cheers of city residents, before loading them into police cars.
On the Facebook page of non-government group Sayeb Trottoir, the medic Lazhar Neji, working in the emergency room of a hospital, deplored “an inhumane… bloody night that makes you tremble”.
He said the hospital had received between 30 and 40 injured migrants, including women and children, and said “some were thrown from terraces, others attacked with swords”.
Other footage showed migrants lying on the ground, their hands on their heads, surrounded by residents armed with sticks who waited for police to arrive to hand them over.
Police took some migrants to the site of the Sfax International Fair, from where they were to be transferred elsewhere, said Romdane Ben Amor, head of the non-government group Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
He told AFP that some migrants were taken to an area near the Libyan border, without being able to give precise numbers.
Tunisia has seen a rise in racially motivated attacks following President Kais Saied’s comments in February accusing “hordes” of illegal migrants of bringing violence and alleging a “criminal plot” to change the country’s demographic make-up.
With a population of 12 million, Tunisia hosts an estimated 21,000 migrants from other parts of Africa, representing 0.2 percent of the population.
(AFP)
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