Migrants expelled from Tunisia Two bodies found in the desert

Migrants expelled from Tunisia: Two bodies found in the desert near Algeria

According to a judicial spokesman and a Tunisian witness, at least two bodies of African migrants were found in desert areas on the Tunisia-Algeria border in a 10-day period, leaving dozens more abandoned to their fate.

• Also read: Tunisia: African migrants hunted after the death of a Tunisian man

• Also read: Tunisia: A man was killed in clashes with migrants

After clashes that left one Tunisian man dead last week, dozens of sub-Saharan migrants have been evicted from Sfax, central-eastern Tunisia, and taken by authorities to inhospitable border areas of Libya and Algeria, according to NGOs.

“A first body was found in the Hazoua desert (near the Algerian border, ed.) at least ten days ago, and another one last night,” court spokesman Nizar Skander told AFP on Tuesday. east of Tunisia, a facility that has “opened an investigation into a doubtful death.”

“It was two young men who came from civil defense to look for the one that was found yesterday,” the witness, a local trader who wished to remain anonymous, told AFP.

According to him, “in one week, two convoys were seen dropping off migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, a hundred in all, near Hazoua.”

“Many of these migrants are trying to reach the oases where residents give them water and food,” the witness added.

The NGO Human Rights Watch on Monday expressed concern about “150 to 200 sub-Saharan migrants” in the border areas between Algeria and Tunisia.

A Guinean migrant, Mamadou, who is staying in Douar El Ma on the Algerian side of the border, launched an emergency call to AFP on Monday, saying he had “no water or food”. He was no longer available on Tuesday. They said there were about thirty people in the same situation.

HRW had collected testimony a few days ago stating that “several people died near the Algerian border”.

“Many people who are deported near the Algerian border risk their lives if they are not rescued immediately,” Salsabil Chellali, director of HRW in Tunisia, told AFP.

HRW on Monday evening announced the housing of 500 to 700 sub-Saharan migrants who were abandoned last week in a buffer zone on the Tunisia-Libya border in at least three Tunisian towns: Ben Guerdane, Tataouine and Medenine.