Libyan border guards rescue migrants left in desert near Tunisia
Libyan border guards have rescued dozens of migrants they said had been left in the desert by Tunisian authorities without water, food or shelter.
Hundreds of people from sub-Saharan African countries were forcibly taken to desert and hostile areas bordering Libya and Algeria after racial unrest in early July in Sfax, Tunisia’s second largest city.
They were visibly exhausted and dehydrated, sitting or lying on the sand and using shrubs to try to shield themselves from the scorching summer heat that topped 40C (104F).
The group of at least 80 people were found in an uninhabited area close to Al-Assah, a town near the Tunisia-Libya border, about 90 miles (150km) west of Tripoli.
The Libyan border agents gave them water and took them to a shelter.
In a video shared on the Facebook page of the Libyan unit patrolling the border, one officer could be heard saying: “Do you see them? It’s sad. They are being expelled from Tunisia to Libya.”
The officer added: “We found another group with children and women,” pointing towards the Tunisian border several hundred metres away.
The video also showed a man rescued from the border area on Saturday saying that “Tunisian police deported us to Libya”.
Without help from the Libyan border guards “we would die in the desert,” the man said, adding that he would like to return to Tunisia where his wife and children remained.
Hundreds of people fled or were forced out of Sfax after racial tensions flared following killing of a Tunisian man in an altercation between locals and migrants on 3 July.
The port of Sfax is a departure point for many migrants from impoverished and violence-torn countries seeking a better life in Europe by making a perilous Mediterranean crossing, often in makeshift boats.
Tunisian rights groups said on Friday that between 100 and 150 people, including women and children, were still stuck on the border with Libya.
The Tunisian Red Crescent said it had provided shelter to more than 600 people who had been taken after 3 July to the militarised zone of Ras Jedir, north of Al-Assah on the Mediterranean coast.
In Tunisia’s west, near the Algerian border, about 165 people abandoned near the border with Algeria had been picked up, the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) said on Friday, without specifying by whom or where they were taken.
An FTDES spokesperson, Romdhane Ben Amor, said migrants on Algeria’s border could die if they are not immediately given aid and shelter, noting that the bodies of two had already been found.