The management of the World Bank (WB) has decided to temporarily suspend its discussions on the Country Partnership Framework (CPF), which sets out the strategic directions for medium-term operational commitments (2023-2027), with Tunisia. The WB’s decision comes in the wake of violence and attacks targeting sub-Saharan migrants in the country. These incidents occurred after a speech by the President of the Republic last February in which he denounced “hordes of illegal migrants.”
Chronicle of an announced fiasco:
Tunisia, with a population of some 12 million, is home to more than 21,000 people from sub-Saharan Africa, most of whom are in an irregular situation, according to the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES). Many of them have seen their daily lives fall into violence after the words of President Said. Since his speech, attacks on people from sub-Saharan Africa are increasing. Attacks in the street, dismissals, and evictions of tenants have been relayed on social networks by migrants in absolute distress.
At the origin of this state of fear, a speech made by President Kaïes Saïed who argued, on February 21, that irregular migration in Tunisia is a “criminal enterprise hatched at the dawn of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia,” to transform it into an “African only” country and to blur its “Arab-Muslim” aspect. Saïd also called for “urgent measures” against the “hordes of illegal migrants” from sub-Saharan Africa, whose presence is, according to him, a source of “violence, crime and unacceptable acts.”
A few days after these inflammatory remarks, four sub-Saharan migrants were victims of stabbing on the night of February 25 in Sfax. While in Tunis, four Ivorian students were attacked outside their university residence. A Gabonese woman, also, left her home on Saturday. These attacks marked the beginning of a widespread campaign of lynching, discrimination, and violence against sub-Saharan migrants.
Condemnations and Support Demonstrations:
Less than a week after the controversial speech, the African Union issued a statement recalling that the president’s remarks “go against the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, in particular Article 2, which prohibits any discrimination based on race, and Article 5 on respect for the dignity of every human being.” The union’s President Moussa Faki Mahamat “strongly condemned the shocking statements made by the Tunisian authorities against fellow Africans, which go against the letter and spirit of our organization and our founding principles.”
On February 25, a large demonstration in support of sub-Saharan migrants was held in the capital Tunis. The demonstrators denounced the president’s remarks, saying that racism has no place in Tunisia and that all migrants are welcome.
In a statement, twenty Tunisian NGOs, including the FTDES, denounced the rise of “hate speech” and racism in the country against migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. The signatories of the text added that “the Tunisian state is turning a blind eye to the rise of hate speech and racism on social networks and in some media. The Tunisian Association of the Democratic Women (ATFD) has made its listening centre, usually intended to support women victims of violence, available to all migrants in need.
Other demonstrations of support were organized on social media where several citizens launched and organized collections of clothing, medicine, financial aid, and even temporary housing for migrants. Gestures of solidarity that, despite the precariousness, were spontaneously organized to respond to the distress of those who, continuously, found themselves without work, housing, and any means of survival.
Mass repatriation
This unprecedented wave of violence has led hundreds of migrants to opt to return to their home countries. A number of 145 Ivorian nationals, including 45 women and several children, landed in Abidjan on Saturday, March 4. The Prime Minister, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and several members of the government welcomed the returnees who, following several administrative and police procedures, were placed in the transit centre set up at the Institute of Youth and Sports in Marcory.
Ange Séri Soka, president of the Union of Ivorians in Tunisia, however, stressed that efforts must continue to allow the repatriation of more people. “We are almost 5,000 Ivorians on Tunisian territory and we currently have compatriots sleeping in olive fields and who have no shelter because they were driven out of their homes. We ask the Ivorian state to discuss with the Tunisian state so that these people can easily come to the embassy to be enrolled,” he explained.
The Guinean authorities, for their part, set up a special flight on March 1 to repatriate 49 of their nationals. Welcomed by the president of the transition, Colonel Mamadi Doumbouya, and the minister of foreign affairs, Morissanda Kouyaté, several of the returnees expressed their relief at having returned home after the attacks they suffered in Tunisia. Morissanda Kouyaté said that an airlift is in place to repatriate all Guineans from Tunisia.
Mali has also chartered a plane to repatriate 150 people on the orders of junta leader Assimi Goita, who has given “very firm instructions to deal” with the plight of his compatriots, according to a Malian diplomat in Tunis, who preferred to remain anonymous. The returnees told AFP of an “outpouring of hatred” after the speech of Kaïs Saied, and of several days of “nightmare”.
Foreign demonstrations and calls for boycotts
The controversial words of the president Saïd have caused a large wave of indignation on social media. In Mali, Senegal, Ivory Coast, or Guinea, Internet users call to boycott Tunisian products. The lists of these products are disseminated on social networks with the slogan “We boycott.”
The newspaper Mosaique Guinea reported that “many Guinean economic operators have suspended the purchase and import of Tunisian products in Conakry, in view of everything that their compatriots and neighbours in the subregion are suffering from the authorities and people of this Arab country.” The President of the Tunisia Africa Business Council (TABC), Anis Jaziri, revealed that the crisis unit of his organization has made alarming findings after contacting various economic actors on the continent.
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“Blocking of Tunisian goods in some African ports, cancellations of orders and even contracts, boycott campaign of Tunisian products in some sub-Saharan countries, redirection of patients to other destinations, return of dozens of students to their countries of origin, cancellation of travel of several sub-Saharan businessmen, cancellation of missions, fairs, forums …” |
In Dakar, Senegal, the Frapp movement organized a protest rally in front of the Tunisian embassy to denounce “the hunting and persecution of black Africans in Tunisia caused by the irresponsible, racist, and negrophobic remarks of the president.” A dozen demonstrators, including a member of parliament, were arrested and then released. On Friday, March 10, three weeks after Said’s speech, several associations and civil society organizations organized a press conference in the Senegalese capital to take stock of the situation and call on the Tunisian president to make a public apology, proof that anger does not subside in Senegal and elsewhere.
Attempts to save its reputation
In light of the dire criticism, Saïd tries to defend himself as best he can. In an interview with the President of Guinea-Bissau Umaro Sissoco Embalo, who stopped over in Tunis on Wednesday, March 8, the Tunisian president worsened the situation by declaring that he has “a number of (my) family members who are married to Africans, and (my) friends at the Tunis law school were Africans.” These words have once again shocked, pained, and torn society apart.
On March 5, the Tunisian authorities announced a series of measures in favour of students and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa by issuing “one-year residence cards to students from African countries to facilitate their stay and allow them to periodically renew their documents” or to “extend residence certificates from three to six months.”
The Ministry of the Interior announced that a toll-free number (80.10.11.11) is now “active in the operations centre of the department, to facilitate services, and provide the required information to migrants.”
The situation of foreign workers under the Tunisian law
In a scientific article published in the European Journal of International Migration and entitled “Sub-Saharan migrant workers in Tunisia faced with legislative restrictions on the employment of foreigners,” Mustapha Nasraoui explains that “access to the Tunisian labour market for foreigners is extremely difficult. Two drastic legal measures block their employment: first, Law No. 1968-0007 of March 8, 1968, on the status of foreigners in Tunisia. In addition to the access and residence documents required. This law stipulates in Article 23 that any foreigner who does not apply within a legal time limit for a residence visa and a residence permit or their renewal on expiry of their validity is liable to one year’s imprisonment and a cumulative fine.”
However, the Tunisian authorities rarely extend the tourist stay of three months, which puts many migrants in an irregular situation. In addition to a residence permit, foreigners must obtain a work permit, which is difficult to obtain because of the lack of Tunisian skills in the specialties concerned. Mustapha Nasraoui recalls that “faced with the impossibility of paying the penalties accumulated from one week to another, many immigrants are almost confined on the territory, they have no other means than to accept the most precarious and painful work to be able to live and pay the fines if they plan to leave the country one day.”
By May 2018, the powerful trade union centre, the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT), had opened its first “Migrant Spaces” in its offices in Tunis and Sousse. These spaces offer migrant workers, regardless of their status, access to legislative and administrative information, specific training and concrete services (conciliation in case of labour disputes).
In December 2020, the UGTT was the first in the Arab region by accepting the membership of foreign workers in its various structures. The trade union centre explained that its decision aimed to “provide a trade union and legal framework that protects foreign workers in Tunisia against exploitation, racism, and violation of their social and economic rights.”
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