Tunis [Tunisia], July 28: African migrants pleaded to be saved from a desert zone between Libya and Tunisia on late Wednesday weeks after Tunisian authorities allegedly dumped dozens of them there with nothing. "We are dying. We are dying by the minute," a Nigerian who wanted to be identified only by his first name, George, told AFP. "Please, I'm begging you. Take us from here now," said George, 43. "Come and rescue us from this place." On Tuesday Libya's interior ministry said the bodies of five African migrants had been found near Tunisia's border.
The group of about 140 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa are the latest to be taken to Tunisia's borderlands with Libya or Algeria, according to border guards, migrants and NGO workers who reported previous cases. "We don't know where we are living here. We've been suffering with no food and no water," George said at the migrants' makeshift camp among barbed wire 30 meters (33 yards) from a Libyan border post on the seashore at RasJedir. He said he had been working as a barber for 18 months in the Tunisian coastal city of Sfax, where his wife and baby remained after he was forced out.
"The Tunisian police, they aim their weapons. and say we are terrorists," George said. The Libyans tell the migrants not to go further into their territory, leaving them "stuck in the middle," George said, as a heatwave grips the Mediterranean. Through the Red Crescent the Libyans have, however, brought them some food and water, which they share among themselves. Another migrant, Fatima, 36, from Niger, said Tunisian soldiers "took everything from us", including their mobile phones, and left them there. She also declined to give a last name. Some held up torn pieces of cardboard with hand-written messages. One asked the International Organization for Migration to "help please".
"We are humans," another said. Racial tensions In early July, hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were driven out of the Tunisian port city of Sfax as racial tensions flared following the death of a Tunisian man in a clash between locals and migrants. At its closest point, near Sfax, Tunisia is only about 130 kilometers from the Italian island of Lampedusa. The North African country is a gateway for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting perilous sea voyages in hopes of a better life in Europe. Mubarak Adam Mohamad, 24, said he had fled the war in Sudan for Libya before reaching Tunisia.
"I was arrested by the police in Sfax and brought here by force," he told AFP, appealing for "regional and international organizations" to rescue them. Medecins du Monde, an aid group, called on Tunisian authorities to facilitate humanitarian access. "These people find themselves in a situation of great vulnerability," the group said in a statement. Human Rights Watch said up to 1,200 black Africans were "expelled or forcibly transferred by Tunisian security forces" to the country's desert border regions with Libya and Algeria this month.
In mid-July the Tunisian Red Crescent said it had provided shelter to at least 630 migrants who had been taken after July 3 to RasJedir, north of Al-Assah. Around the same time, Libyan border guards also said they rescued dozens of migrants left in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water and food. An AFP team at the time saw migrants who were visibly exhausted and dehydrated, sitting or lying on the sand and using shrubs to try and shield themselves from the heat that topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). The group were in an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah. Tragedy in sea Almost 800 irregular migrants drowned off Tunisia in the first half of this year as they tried to reach Europe by boat, a National Guard spokesman told AFP Thursday.
"789 bodies of migrants were recovered from the sea, including 102 Tunisians, the others foreigners and unidentified people," said HoucemEddineJebabli, adding that more than 34,000 were rescued. The North African country has become a major gateway for irregular migrants and asylum-seekers attempting the perilous sea voyage in often rickety boats in the hope of a better life in Europe. The distance between Tunisia, near its second city of Sfax, and the Italian island of Lampedusa is about 130 kilometers (80 miles), and the sea voyages pick up in the summer months.
Between January 1 and June 20, a total of 34,290 migrants were intercepted and rescued, sharply up from 9,217 over the same period of last year, Jebabli said. More than 30,000 of those rescued this year were foreigners, mostly from sub-Saharan Africa, he said. Coastguard units carried out 1,310 operations in the first six months, more than double the number of missions for that period last year.
The Italian government says that more than 80,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean Sea to arrive on its shores so far this year, mostly from Tunisia and from war-scarred Libya. The central Mediterranean has become the world's deadliest migratory route, claiming more than 20,000 lives since 2014, according to the International Organization for Migration. - AFP
Source: Kuwait Times