Thousands of sub-Saharan migrants live in the olive groves around the city of Sfax in precarious conditions. The winter and the regular dismantling of camps by the police have made the situation worse. At the end of December, two people died from carbon monoxide poisoning after lighting a fire in their tents.
On December 27, the day was cool in the olive groves surrounding Sfax (eastern Tunisia) where thousands of migrants live. The thermometer was down to no more than 10 degrees. So, when Bintou did not come out of her tent in the morning, her friends thought that she simply wanted to stay sheltered in her makeshift home.
But, as the hours passed, the friends ended up getting worried, initially thinking that the 26-year-old Guinean was sick. At the end of the day, they called the only available doctor in these camps made of stretched-out tarpaulins, bags and blankets. Doctor Ibrahim could do nothing but record the young woman’s death.
"She was probably very cold and she lit a fire with coal to warm herself but she died of carbon monoxide poisoning," this anesthesiologist from Sierra Leone, himself a migrant, told InfoMigrants. "We then called the police and they came to collect the body."
Carbon monoxide poisoning, an odorless but very dangerous gas, can occur when a fire is lit with wood, coal, gas or gasoline in a poorly ventilated area.
The Sfax hospital was unable to confirm to InfoMigrants the death of the two people, but the editorial team was able to consult photographic evidence of their deaths.
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Preventive measures
In these makeshift camps set up in remote areas, Dr. Ibrahim and his team of five migrant nurses work tirelessly to provide what limited care they can. For this small medical team, this amounts to crisis medicine with a stethoscope, a blood pressure monitor, a few bandages and something to suture wounds when the equipment has managed to reach the camps thanks to the discreet help of Tunisians or migrants.
But the doctor is no longer just treating, prevention is now part of his mission. Because Bintou's death is not the first tragedy caused by carbon monoxide.
On December 19, Francis, a 23-year-old Ghanaian, had already died of poisoning, in similar circumstances. That was enough to make the volunteer doctor fear that these deaths will multiply in the makeshift camps of the olive groves because the nights are cold and the migrants lack blankets to keep warm.
Saikou, a migrant living in the olive groves contacted by InfoMigants, explains that he sleeps with four under people under a makeshift tent, to keep warm, in vain. This Gambian, who has been in Tunisia for a year and a half, explains that he has no money to buy a jacket or a blanket. He also says that he sometimes resorts to campfires to combat the cold. Saikou endures this life on the street for his family. "My father died, my mother is old, and I am the eldest of my brothers and sisters. It is up to me to make this journey to help them."
The migrant camps in the olive groves are regularly dismantled by the police. Migrants who have lost their belongings may then want to warm themselves by lighting fires in hastily rebuilt shelters.
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Increase in departures and returns
Since President Kaïs Saïed’s inflammatory speech in February 2023, sub-Saharan migrants have faced escalating harassment in Tunisia. Barred from renting apartments and working, many are forced to survive in camps near Sfax, lacking access to water, food, sanitation, or healthcare.
According to a study carried out in July 2024 by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights among 379 migrants interviewed in three governorates (Tunis, Sfax and Medenine), "40.1 percent of migrants do not have access to drinking water and nearly 70 percent say they know migrants who are in need of food."
Faced with these living conditions and the violence they are victims of in the country, more and more migrants are changing their plans to hasten their departure from Tunisia by boat or to return to their country.
Departures from the coast of Sfax increased to new highs in the first months of 2024, with more than 21,000 people leaving the country by sea irregularly, the Tunisian National Guard reported. Requests for voluntary return to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) are also on the rise. Between January 1 and June 25, 2024, 3,500 irregular migrants requested IOM's assistance to return home. That is up 200 percent compared to last year.
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