Most of the 21,000 Africans present in the country are in an irregular situation. Until the words of the Kaïs Saïed presidents, their presence was tolerated.
by Lilia Blaise (Tunis, Correspondence)
In front of the Ivory Coast Embassy in Tunis, Dorothée 27 years old patient with her 2 and a half year old daughter on her back. Like more than a hundred Ivorians, she came to register for voluntary repatriation. “My yawn gave me a week to leave the house. Friends to me had to go even more hastily. I don’t know where to go, it makes me sick what’s going on,” says the young mother in situation illegal, pushed at the start.
Thursday, February 23, two days after the speech of Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed on the “hordes of clandestine migrants”, source, according to him, “of violence, crimes and unacceptable acts”, Dorothée was dismissed from his cleaning lady work.
The next day, the Ivorian diplomatic mission launched a vast operation of census of its nationals “wishing to leave Tunisia definitively”. An approach all the more urgent since the Tunisian authorities accentuated the pressure on the sub -Saharans, despite the demonstration against racism which gathered a thousand people in Tunis on Saturday and the protests from abroad.
Tunisian and sub -Saharan associations have registered in recent weeks many cases of migrants expelled from their home. Evictions precipitated by the strict application of a 2004 law which obliges, under penalty of sanction, the owners to request a residence permit and to report to the police station that they host a foreigner.
hardening Net
This law, like the Labor Code, was so far very little respected in Tunisia. “It has been a problem for a long time since the residence permit is very difficult to obtain in Tunisia in general,” recalls Alaa Talbi, director of the NGO The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights. Several Ivorians who wait before their embassy confirm: they lived for three or four years in their accommodation without ever being worried. “I have the impression that the population is against us, so there is no point in staying,” says Ricoster, a 26 -year -old Ivorian.
On the side of the authorities, the hardening is clear, claimed. The Tunisians who do not respect the law on the accommodation of a foreigner are liable to fifteen days in prison and a fine, said the spokesperson for the Sfax court in a statement on Thursday. Severe sanctions are also provided for the employer who hires a foreigner without employment contract, the next day, the spokesperson for the Tunisian National Guard, Houssem Jebali, in a television declaration.
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