Migrants staged a protest outside the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Tunisia this week. Many had been living rough outside the nearby UN migration office following a surge in racist attacks sparked by president Kais Saied’s call last month for state resources to be used to halt the flow of migrants from other parts of Africa into the country.
In a video posted to his Facebook account on 21 February, Saied said migration was a “plot” against Tunisia’s demographic composition that would make it an “African” rather than an “Arab-Muslim” country. He claimed that unnamed parties were receiving money to settle African migrants in Tunisia.
The effect of the president’s words, which speak to prejudices that have long simmered under the surface of Tunisian society, was immediate. Overnight, Black migrants – many of whom have precarious employment or live in unregulated housing – became targets of violence at the hands of the state as well as ordinary Tunisians stressed by food shortages and a deepening economic crisis.
