According to the head of the Tunisian committee for irregular migration, around 20,000 irregular migrants passed through El Amra in Tunisia's Sfax governorate during 2024, one of the zones from which many migrant vessels depart in their attempts to reach Europe.
This figure, stated the Tunisian authorities, marked a significant decrease based on 2023's figures, when it is estimated that there were almost 100,000 crossing attempts.
Brigadier General Khaled Ben Jarad, central director of the general inspectorate of Tunisia's National Guard and head of the committee for irregular migration, on Thursday (January 23) underscored that "it is not currently possible" to establish the exact number of undocumented migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia.
He noted that this is due to constant change in data at the time of entrance and exit from Tunisia recorded by the International Organization for Migration (IOM).
Speaking during a day of study on "irregular migration in Tunisia" organised by the People's Assembly at the parliament, Jarad said that irregular migrants from sub-Saharan countries enter Tunisia mostly through Algeria, underscoring that migrants from more than 22 nationalities are present in Tunisia, reported Tunsia's national press agency TAP.
According to figures provided by the EU border control agency Frontex quoted by Ben Jarad, there are a million irregular migrants in Libya and an estimated 250,000 in Algeria.
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80,000 migrants arrested, 96 makeshift camps dismantled
The General noted that efforts by the security forces had managed to reduce migrant arrivals to Tunisia by 64 percent in September 2024 and reduce the rate of entrance via land by 84 percent in the last three months of 2024.
Last year, Tunisian authorities arrested 80,000 migrants and dismantled 96 makeshift camps. They also arrested 15 migrants for suspected involvement in terrorism and discovered 64 cases of human trafficking leading to the arrest of 88 people, he claimed.
Some 40 files have also been opened, he stressed, against shipyards allegedly involved in construction of unauthorized boats, while over 2,080 people were arrested for either organizing irregular migration or acting as intermediaries for it.
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Repatriation
IOM Tunisia, in coordination with IOM and bordering countries (Algeria and Libya), organized the voluntary repatriation of 7,250 irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in 2024, according to Secretary of State for Tunisia's foreign ministry Mohamed Ben Ayed.
The official noted that this had been made possible in part thanks to diplomatic efforts and cooperation with African countries to facilitate the return home of their citizens.
Tunisia, Ben Ayed continued, is in a development phase and the significant presence of irregular migrants acts as a heavy burden for national efforts at both the security and other levels.
"Concentrating only on the security approach has proven ineffective in recent years, since it almost turned the transit country into a platform for the collection of irregular migrants," he stressed.
Against this backdrop, he noted that Tunisia had communicated its position on irregular migration at all bilateral and multilateral levels, reiterating that the country refuses to be a point of transit or settlement for these migrants.