"The Tunisian National Guard goes into houses, breaks down doors, confiscates passports, steals everything they find – phones, personal belongings, money… – beats people with batons and puts them on buses," Salif told InfoMigrants. Salif* is a twenty-year-old Guinean living near Sfax (central-eastern Tunisia).

Although Salif's account couldn't be independently verified, according to our information, Black people in Tunisia are being targeted by a new wave of large-scale arrests, mainly in the cities of Sousse (East) and Sfax. In cafes, on the street, in train stations, in taxis, in shops and even in apartments, Sub-Saharans are stopped everywhere by officers in civilian clothing or in uniform. The phenomenon is so wide that migrants describe it as "general arrests."

Racial profiling

Salif reports that several of his friends were "rounded up" in the streets of Sousse last week. Others were also caught along the road from Sfax to El-Amra, where thousands of migrants live in olive fields. "Yesterday [May 13th] again, a few people were arrested near where I am when they were going to a store to get food," Salif told InfoMigrants. "The police put them on buses."

InfoMigrants has collected several testimonies like this one in recent weeks. Christian*, a Cameroonian also said some of his relatives were arrested in the streets of Sfax on May 6. Emmanuel*, an Ivorian, recounts that an "undocumented brother was arrested Monday [May 6th] in the early morning after finishing work as a guard on a construction site in Tunis."

According to the young man, police officers also raided a building in the Soukra district, in the suburbs of the Tunisian capital. That building is occupied by Black people. "They took everyone. At the police station, they released the people with documentation and they kept the others." InfoMigrants was unable to verify that information.

On social media, the Refugees in Libya account published a video on May 10 showing police officers breaking into a building to arrest Black people. Sub-Saharans climbed onto the roof to try to escape these raids.

People with proper documentation are not free from harassment. Jérôme*, a business student in Tunis, told InfoMigrants about racial profiling happening in the capital. "A friend was stopped by men from the Civil Guard last week, in the street. He presented his residence permit and was able to walk away," Jerome said. “We feel a different atmosphere at the moment, National Guard agents are increasingly visible.”

'Illegal and arbitrary collective deportations'

It is difficult to know where arrested migrants are being sent as it is complicated to get in touch with them directly: most no longer have a phone, or, if they managed to keep it, they no longer have a battery.

Christian and Emmanuel say their friends managed to contact them just after their arrest. "They told us that they had been sent to the desert," report the two Africans. Since then, they have not heard from each other.

Salif, too, cannot reach his friends. "They were surely abandoned at the border with Algeria or Libya," he thinks. "It will take a little time [before we can reach them]: they have to return by their own means to Sfax and the road is long."

In a press release published on May 16, Amnesty International stresses that these "collective expulsions" are "illegal and arbitrary, without due process or assessment of individual protection, in flagrant violation of international law". Tunisian authorities "must immediately stop these expulsions and ensure that the rights of all refugees and migrants, including children, are protected at all times," Heba Morayef, regional director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International said.

It remains impossible to determine the number of people arrested since the beginning of May. Tunisian authorities refuse to communicate publicly on the subject.

Prison sentences for illegal entry and stay

This type of method is not new: last summer, thousands of sub-Saharans were rounded up in Sfax and deported to the desert, on the border of Algeria and Libya. Around 100 people died there of thirst. InfoMigrants also revealed some were detained in high schools.

These round-ups have since continued but more sporadically. In recent days, everything suggests that they have become more pronounced. They now affect all places frequented by Black people. "It started again in October/November but it was rarer. It was especially concentrated in the camps located in the olive fields. At the moment, we hear about 'wild' arrests almost every day," Salif said.

According to several testimonies, this new wave of arrests began on May 6, the day Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed convened a National Security Council. Then, the President once again targeted migrants and the NGOs that come to their aid, calling them "traitors."

In February 2023, Saïed used similarly inflammatory rhetoric, speaking of "hordes" of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia, to whom he attributed the source of “violence and crime”.

"These arrests are a way for the state to reduce the number of migrants present in large cities," Romdhane Ben Amor, spokesperson for the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) told InfoMigrants. "It also sends a message to migrants wishing to go to cities: ‘Don’t come or you will be arrested’."

This criminalization of migrants – and their supporters – can even go further. On May 15, 50 migrants were sentenced to eight months in prison by the Sousse court for illegal entry and stay in the country. These convictions already existed but today they seem to be increasing in number. "There is clearly a desire on the part of the authorities to publicize” these trials, an NGO worker who prefers to remain anonymous told InfoMigrants. 

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The hostile climate targeting Black people is causing panic among migrants. Many no longer dare to leave their home. Jérôme, although in a regular situation in Tunisia, no longer goes outside once night falls, because, he says, "in the evening, everyone is suspect". Salif, for his part, has not left his camp under the olive trees for two days, preferring to hole up rather than "risk his life" to stock up on water and food.

Christian is the one who is most worried: "I am very afraid because I have no money, neither does my family. If I am deported to Libya and sent to prison, I will not be able to pay the guards for my release. It's certain, I will die in Libyan jails."

*All names have been changed.