Tunisians protest against increasing number of migrants stranded on their way to Europe

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Anti-immigrant anger is running high in poor towns like Jebeniana on Tunisia’s coast, which have become jumping off points for thousands of people hoping to reach Europe by boat.

Protesters called on the government to help farming communities deal with thousands of migrants living in makeshift camps among olive groves.

“You brought them here. It’s your responsibility to send them back to their homeland,” Moamen Salemi, from nearby El Amra, said at the protest. “There is a shortage of food, including sugar, flour, bread and many other items, across the city of El Amra.”

Tunisia is an important transit point for migrants from Syria, Bangladesh and sub-Saharan African countries.

Police security has been stepped up in the two towns, which are home to about 83,000 Tunisian residents.

Protesters are calling for an influx of migrants into the EU, less than a year after Tunisia signed an anti-immigration deal with the EU to tighten border security and receive more than €1 billion in aid. It claims that it paid the costs to prevent it. .

The Tunisian coast guard said it had intercepted more than 21,000 migration attempts by land or sea this year. Fewer than 8,000 people successfully made the boat trip from Tunisia to Italy in the first four months of 2024, a threefold decrease from 2023, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, UNHCR.

Anti-immigrant protests erupted in the city of Sfax last year, months after Tunisian President Kais Saied called for measures to combat violence and crime, which he blamed on illegal immigration. However, these are new developments in Jebeniana and El Amra, where similar protests took place earlier this month.

Since local authorities began stepping up efforts to clear camps from Sfax in 2023, camps have sprung up and expanded on the outskirts of the two towns.

The Tunisian office of the International Organization for Migration has said that around 7,000 migrants live near Jebeniana and El Amra, but residents expect the number could rise further.