Until the beginning of this year, Tunisia was a relatively safe space for civil society organisations supporting migrants. Many of those organisations were first set up in Libya, but harassment and allegations from the Libyan authorities and non-state actors had forced them to relocate west along the north African shoreline.
Now those groups, and the members who carry out their crucial work, are being forced out of Tunisia as well.
I’m a researcher in Italy for the project ‘SHUT-MED: securitising human transit across the central Mediterranean migratory corridor’. I recently met with several civil society actors to find out how Tunisia’s border strategy – heavily influenced by its cooperation with the EU – is affecting migrants and those advocating for migrants’ rights.
