Tunisia is one of the few main departure points for thousands of migrants trying to reach Europe.
Tunisia, whose coastline is less than 150km from the Italian island of Lampedusa, regularly records attempts by migrants, especially sub-Saharan Africans, to reach Italy.
Recently, however, it has become increasingly clear that Tunisia has become a country of refuge, given the large number of sub-Saharan families living there.
According to official figures, nearly 70,000 migrants have been intercepted trying to cross the Mediterranean from Tunisia to Italy this year.
National Guard spokesman Houssemeddine Jebabli spoke about the problem of illegal migration, saying that the flow of sub-Saharan migrants to Tunisia was due to the cancellation of visas in 2013.
Speaking on a private radio station, he added that the National Guard was not monitoring European borders but exercising its sovereignty over Tunisian territory.
Jebabli highlighted the presence of human trafficking networks run by Tunisians.
Since the beginning of the year, around 2,500 sub-Saharan migrants have returned to their countries as part of the voluntary repatriation of sub-Saharan migrants illegally residing in Tunisia,’ announced the Directorate General of the National Guard.
This comes after ‘numerous irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa approached several security headquarters (Security and National Guard) to request the possibility of examining and intervening on their behalf with the organizations involved in immigration’ in the country, with the aim of returning voluntarily to their countries of origin, according to the statement.
At a meeting of the National Security Council, the President of the Republic, Kaïs Saïed, raised the issue, making serious accusations and revealing worrying facts.
According to him, Tunisia is facing a criminal plan to ‘settle irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa’.
He goes on to describe a ‘criminal scheme’ that has been planned since the beginning of the century to ‘change the demographic composition of Tunisia’, accusing unnamed parties ‘who have received large sums of money since 2011 to settle irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa in Tunisia’.
President Saïed went on to stress that ‘the successive waves of irregular migration to Tunisia are part of a project with a hidden agenda aimed at confining Tunisia to its African dimension, which has no identity or affinity with the Arab-Islamic nation’.
He also called for an all-out mobilization, advocating diplomatic, security and military action, accompanied by a strict and vigorous application of the law on the status of foreigners in Tunisia.
