"Human Rights Watch": Tunisia Must Stop the Mass Deportation of African Migrants

The organization "Human Rights Watch" stated that "Tunisia must halt the mass deportations and allow urgent humanitarian assistance to reach the African migrants who were expelled to a dangerous area on the Tunisian-Libyan border, amid an unprecedented migration crisis that Tunisia is experiencing." The organization noted that the deported individuals come from several African countries, including Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Mali, Guinea, Chad, Sudan, and Senegal, among them 29 children and 3 pregnant women. In this context, Lauren Seibert, a researcher in refugee and migrant rights at "Human Rights Watch," said: "It is unreasonable to abuse people and abandon them in the desert, and mass deportation violates international law." The International Organization for Migration in Libya indicated that "despite the challenges in reaching the area, it has managed to provide some emergency medical assistance to some of the migrants." Thousands of African migrants have flowed into Sfax in recent months aiming to embark towards Europe on boats operated by human traffickers, leading to an unprecedented migration crisis for the North African state.