"When they arrested me near Sfax [central-eastern Tunisia, editor's note], the Tunisian police made me get on a bus with other people who had just been intercepted at sea. The bus was full: there were about 50 of us. There were women, one of whom was pregnant, and two children of about 10 years old. We were handcuffed. All of us, without exception: even the children.

We drove for several hours in the desert. During the journey, the Tunisians searched us and stole all our belongings, our money and our phones. They also beat us up. If you move, if you try to change position because the handcuffs hurt or something else, the police hit you and tell you to be quiet. If you raise your head to try to see where the bus is going, they beat you up.

After a while, the bus stopped. We spent the night in a camp on the road, in the middle of nowhere. When we arrived, the Tunisians gave us a piece of bread and a 1.5-liter bottle of water to share between three people – only the children and the pregnant woman were allowed a piece of bread each.

In the cells, we were crammed together. We couldn’t lie down, there wasn’t enough space. Some managed to sleep sitting up. I couldn’t sleep all night. I was thinking about a lot of things, I was afraid.

It was the first time I had been arrested. I had heard that migrants were being abandoned at the border with Algeria. So I thought that's what was going to happen to me. I was worried because I know that crossing the desert is hard and very tiring.

Since the summer of 2023, sub-Saharan Africans living in Tunisia have been regularly rounded up by the Tunisian authorities and sent to desert areas, on the Algerian or Libyan border. They must then return to Tunisian soil by their own means. Over the past two years, InfoMigrants has received many testimonies from people traumatized by these illegal expulsions.

'In the early morning, we arrived at Tajourah prison'

The next morning, we got back on the bus and drove all day, without any food. Around 8 or 9 pm, we arrived at the Libyan border. I don't know exactly where we were because it was dark and we were in the middle of the desert. I thought we were going to sleep in a camp again.

But the Tunisian police officers got off the bus and went to meet Libyan militias, who were waiting for us. There was a meeting between them, they talked for a while. Then the Libyans, armed and hooded, picked us up.

According to some accounts collected by InfoMigrants, the Tunisians sell migrants to Libyan forces. At the end of 2023, Sub-Saharans told in detail of deportations and exchanges in the desert to InfoMigrants. Several testimonies mentioned money exchanges at the time of the transfer of migrants from Tunisia to Libya. A small black bag, containing banknotes, would be passed on by Libyans to Tunisians.

In a report entitled "State Treaty: Deportation and Sale of Migrants from Tunisia to Libya" and presented to the European Parliament on January 29, 2025, a group of researchers reported the same facts. "Not all witnesses saw money or other means of payment: this is explained by the violent context and the fact that transactions can take place at night," specify the authors of the report.

The Libyans ordered us to get into their pick-up truck. In the early morning, we disembarked at Tajourah prison.

The prison of Tajourah, in the eastern suburbs of Tripoli, is an official detention center, managed by the Department for Combatting Settlement and Illegal Immigration, of the Ministry of the Interior. In 2019, the structure was targeted by a bombing, attributed to Marshal Haftar's forces, who is fighting for power in Libya with the internationally recognized government of national unity. At least 40 migrants died in this attack.

The living conditions in this center are particularly harsh: people are crammed into small cells and receive little food. Women are regularly raped. Sarah, a 19-year-old Ivorian, told InfoMigrants in 2021 about the violence she suffered in Tajourah prison. "One evening, they [the guards, editor's note] came to get me. They took me to a small room and undressed me. I told them I didn't want to, but they slapped me. They raped me, and then they took me back to my room. Every evening, the guards came to get us [to attack us]," she explained. Sarah had a child in prison, from one of these rapes.

Released from a Libyan prison in exchange for 800 euros

Guards came to see me in my cell and told me that I had to pay 800 euros for my release. There were a lot of migrants in this prison. Some had been there for months, because they had no money to get out.

After three weeks, I managed to get enough money from my family. When I got out, I rested in a shelter in Tripoli, run by a Libyan smuggler.

A month later, I set off again for Tunisia, with the help of the smuggler in exchange for 600 euros. I wanted to join my brother, who had stayed in the country. We went through western Libya, then through Algeria to go back up to Tunisia.

But once we arrived on Tunisian soil, the problems were not over and the ordeal continued.

Kidnapped in Tunisia

At the Tunisian border, I took a ‘mafia taxi’. He sold me to some Cameroonians. When the taxi dropped me off in Sfax in the Ben Saïda district, men came out of a house and forced me to go inside. Eight other migrants were already locked up there.

Some had been tortured: they had burn marks, scars, missing teeth. One of them told me that the jailers had pulled out his teeth. They film the abuse and send the videos to the victims' families so that they pay a ransom in exchange for their release.

"Mafia taxis" are taxis driven by Tunisian nationals. Some make the migrants believe that they will drop them off in town, but they sell them to sub-Saharan migrants who have been living in Tunisia for a long time. The migrants are then tortured and have to pay for their release. Last year, InfoMigrants collected several testimonies telling the same stories of kidnapping and extortion, committed by Cameroonian nationals.

I escaped the violence because I managed to collect the 400 euros requested quickly, thanks to the help of friends in Tunisia.

I came back to live in the olive groves, near Sfax [expelled from city centers by the authorities, the Sub-Saharans have built huge camps on the outskirts of Sfax and live there in dramatic conditions, editor's note], and I am in debt up to my neck. Because of this story, I owe money to too many people."

Editor's note: This testimony could not be independently verified.