Saqia Sidi Youssef massacre... France's punishment of Tunisians for their support of the Algerian revolution

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A surprise air attack by the French army on the village of Saqia Sidi Youssef, located on the Algerian-Tunisian border, on February 8, 1958, as part of its war on the Algerian resistance. This attack came as punishment to the Tunisians for their support of the Algerian revolution. The French bombing killed 76 Algerian and Tunisian civilians, including women and children, and 148 were injured.

the reasons

On November 1, 1954, the spark of the Algerian liberation revolution broke out against the French colonizers, led by the National Liberation Front.

In November 1957, the French delegation withdrew from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) conference in protest against the American-British action to deliver a shipment of weapons to Tunisia, as the French believed that these weapons would become accessible to the Algerian revolutionaries present on Tunisian territory.

To deter the Algerian resistance, the French army resorted to horrific methods that included forced population displacement, execution, torture, and rape, all the way to the use of incendiary napalm shells, which prompted hundreds of families to flee and settle in camps prepared for refugees in Morocco and Tunisia.

An official delegation inspects the wounded after the French aircraft bombed Sakia Sidi Youssef in February 1958 (Getty)

Despite the French army's attempt to tighten control over the border crossings between Algeria and Tunisia, the northern mountainous regions escaped the full control of the French occupation forces, and the Algerian population began to secretly flow to northwestern Tunisia, especially the village of Saqia Sidi Youssef, to escape French abuse and the horrors of war.

The Algerians integrated into Tunisian daily life, where they worked in trade and construction work, and some of them settled in a camp prepared by the Tunisian authorities on the outskirts of the village, which France considered a rear military base for the Algerian National Liberation Front, where medical care was provided to those wounded in military operations against French forces, and sheltered families. Algerian resistance fighters.

France exerted pressure on Tunisia, despite its newly independent independence on March 20, 1956. Air sorties were launched from French bases in Algeria and entered Tunisian airspace to intimidate the Tunisian government, which was accused of supporting the Algerian revolutionaries.

The French army received successive painful blows from the Algerian resistance, including the Battle of Jebel Wasta on January 11, 1958, when the 23rd Platoon of the Infantry, led by Captain Alar, fell into a precise ambush, which led to the killing of 17 soldiers and the injury of dozens. The capture of 4 French soldiers was a declaration of the failure of all plans and maneuvers of General Charles de Gaulle to extinguish the flames of the Algerian revolution. He issued a law requiring the pursuit of members of the Algerian National Liberation Army wherever they were in preparation for striking pockets of resistance against the French forces.

France bombed Saqia Sidi Youssef with bombs and machine guns, targeting government buildings and primary schools where children took refuge (Getty)

attack

In the face of the increasing support for the Algerian revolution from various political and civil components in Tunisia, and from a number of border areas between the two countries, the French occupation had to plan a major attack that would cause a rift between the two peoples and push Tunisians to abandon support for the liberation revolution.

France began implementing its plan through preliminary attacks to terrorize the Tunisian people and government. The first armed attack on Al-Sakia was in the context of pursuing members of the National Liberation Army, on the first and second of October 1957, then a second attack on January 30, 1958. After a French plane came under fire from the National Liberation Army.

One day after Robert Lacoste, Governor-General of Algeria at the time, visited eastern Algeria, and on the morning of February 8, 1958, 25 aircraft, including 11 B-26 bombers, took off from Bonn Air Base (currently Annaba) in the direction of Saqia Sidi. Youssef, and launched continuous raids and shelling on the village that continued for more than an hour between ten and eleven in the morning.

The French army's intention was to inflict a large number of casualties, and this was evident in the choice of the day of the attack, which coincided with the weekly market in the city, where a large number of people gathered, in addition to the influx of large numbers of Algerians to receive aid and food aid from humanitarian and charitable organizations such as the Tunisian Red Crescent and the Red Cross. International red.

Saqia Sidi Youssef was bombed with bombs and machine guns. The bombing targeted government buildings and primary schools where children were sheltering, the eldest of whom was 11 years old, in addition to many shops and homes that were suspected of harboring members of the Algerian National Liberation Army.

The French bombing caused the death of 76 Algerians and Tunisians, including women and children (Getty)

human losses

As a result of the French raid on Saqia Sidi Youssef, 76 people were martyred, including 38 men, 11 women, and 20 children. They fell under direct bombardment, and the rest died in the hospital, while 148 people were seriously injured (86 men, 23 women, 19 boys, and 16 girls).

Material losses

Many material losses were recorded as a result of the French bombing of Saqia Sidi Youssef, represented by the destruction of trucks for the International Red Cross and the Tunisian Red Crescent, and the destruction of buildings of public institutions such as the Legation House, the National Guard Center, the Customs Center, the Post Office, the Primary School, the Forest Department and the Mine Administration, in addition to the demolition of 43 shops. And 97 dwellings.

Political results

After the French bombing, the Tunisians threatened French families residing in the country with expulsion, and the Tunisian government demanded the closure of French consulates located in northwestern cities such as the city of Kef, Jendouba, and Majaz al-Bab. The New Constitutional Party also called for large demonstrations and strikes across the country.

Massive demonstrations broke out in several Tunisian cities, such as Tunis, Bizerte, Ras Jebel, Hammam-Lif, Tabarka, Ghar al-Dama and other cities, and the crowds headed to the barracks of the French army - which had not yet completed its evacuation from Tunisia - demanding its departure.

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On the evening of the bombing, the Tunisian state set up roadblocks and prevented supplies from reaching the French military base in Bizerte. French ships were also prevented from entering Lake Bizerte.

The Tunisian government expelled 5 French consuls who were working in the most important Tunisian cities, and then Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba sent an official protest to the UN Security Council demanding an investigation into those bloody events.

The French aggression against Tunisia was an incentive for the American administration to intervene as an important party in the North African crisis, as on February 17, 1958, the United States and Britain appointed a good offices committee to monitor the Tunisian-French crisis.

In the midst of these events, American and British diplomacy began to move, and proposed to France and Tunisia mediation led by the United States and Britain. From the beginning, the French government defined the mission of American-British mediation in three basic points:

• The situation of French soldiers stationed in Tunisia.

• Controlling the Algerian-Tunisian border.

• Resuming bilateral negotiations on the French-Tunisian conflict, especially with regard to the French forces present on Tunisian soil.

The US administration also informed all parties of its desire to intervene to resolve the Algerian issue. France found itself facing a major political crisis that led to the fall of its Fourth Republic.

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