Tunisia rights group denounce the gov’t's ‘oppressive’ decision to deport immigrants

A leading Tunisian non-governmental organisation specialised in immigration issues denounced on Sunday the government’s “inhumane and oppressive” decision to deport a group of irregular immigrants who arrived in Tunisia in 2011.

During a government meeting on Friday, Najla Bouden’s government announced “the need to start deporting them (immigrants) due to their illegal status and that the procedures must start as soon as possible,” according to a statement.

The government said the residence of this group of immigrants in a state-run youth centre in the city of El Marsa, on the outskirts of Tunis, for a period of more than five years, “has disrupted the work of the centre” because of “their total refusal to leave the place.”

In response, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) expressed in a statement, on Sunday, its “indignation at the inhumane and oppressive decision by the government.”

According to NGO, 25 male immigrants, including Egyptians, Sudanese, Nigeriens and Nigerians, who are between 30 and 32-years-old fled the tensions in Libya in 2011, have been residing in the youth centre since 2017 after being deported from the Choucha refugee camp in southern Tunisia.

Ramadan Benomar, who is an official in the FTDES, told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that the authorities had rejected their asylum applications, emphasising that “the deportation of these immigrants to their countries threatens their lives.”

The FTDES warned of “any attempt to impose a solution by force on a vulnerable group whose suffering has lasted for more than ten years.”

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The organisation called on civil society to mobilise “against the discriminatory and repressive policies by the Tunisian government against immigrants,” confirming that it had resorted to “international organisations, the European Union, and all countries that were parties to the Libyan crisis, in an attempt to find a solution for the remaining group, even if it is exceptional, but all in vain.”

After the outbreak of the revolution in Libya in 2011, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) opened the Choucha refugee camp, which hosted up to 18,000 people at the peak of the crisis.

In 2013, the UNHCR decided to close the camp, but hundreds of its residents remained to await resettlement in third countries. While some managed to leave Tunisia, others were offered to move to Tunisian cities.

However, dozens of immigrants remained in the camp, demanding a positive response to their asylum applications, before they were evacuated from the site in 2017.