Tunisia's descent into racism! Another migrant crisis in Africa

However, while the violence may have been triggered by the words of Tunisia’s president, Kais Saied – never a man to let a good conspiracy theory pass him by – many are already looking to the EU’s policy of externalising its migration problems to vulnerable countries on its border. In this case, Tunisia.

Parroting the Great Replacement Theory, Saied was clear. “The undeclared goal of the successive waves of illegal immigration is to consider Tunisia a purely African country that has no affiliation to the Arab and Islamic nations,” he told his security council on February 21, stressing the need to “put an end to this phenomenon quickly, especially as the uncontrolled immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa continue with violence [and] unacceptable crimes.”

Expressing surprise over the international response to the president’s comments has not been enough to prevent Tunisia being suspended from its partnership with the World Bank and the deferment of a meeting with the African Union. However, for many of those living in Tunisia, the damage has been more immediate.

Few have any illusions about where to look when attributing blame for the violent racist purges that have swept Tunisia. It lies with an increasingly idiosyncratic president and a society that has never reckoned with its own prejudice. However, many are also beginning to look wider, to Europe, the international community and its longstanding policy of outsourcing migration policy to countries ill-equipped to cope.

Sheltering in the lee of a rough black tarpaulin tent, a young refugee from Sierra Leone spoke for the hundreds displaced since Saied’s speech. “We came here for a good life, a good future and then to go back to our country,” he said, from a narrow road near the International Organisation Building in Tunis, its rough tents now straining to accommodate the human consequences of the president’s comments. “But this kind of situation right now, they are taking our property, our monies, they are stabbing our friends,” he said.

Another chimed in: “This is all since the president’s speech. Now the Tunisian people are after us. They tried to break down my door and threatened me with a machete. They wanted to rape the women.”

Tunisia is hardly new to the subject of irregular migration, being one of the key contributors to arrivals in Europe. Last year, around 15,000 Tunisians are thought to have entered Europe clandestinely as part of a visa-free deal with Serbia. Tunisians could fly to Serbia, before heading to border camps and then crossing into Europe at night. A further 18,000 undocumented Tunisians are also estimated to have crossed the Mediterranean into Italy in small boats.

Taken on its own, Tunisian migration has already pushed Italy’s reception centres to breaking point. While efforts to push back on Tunisian migration reach across the continent, Italy sits unambiguously at the fore. Since 2017, the country has invested around €75m (£66.5m) in the country’s migration management projects, among them the Tunisian Coast Guard, which is trained, equipped and financed by the European Union.

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