Mohamed knows the dates by heart. It's exactly "eight years, three months and seven days" that he has, for the first time, set foot in Tunisia. "Eight years, three months and seven days" he lives in a country where he has no status, except that of "rejected".
Mohamed is 35 years old, he is Ivorian. He is one of 35 asylum seekers from sub-Saharan Africa living at the La Marsa Youth Center, a very chic seaside resort a few minutes drive from Tunis. In this Sunday, June 30, the city lives already at the rhythm of the holidays. The beach is crowded, the collective taxis connecting with the capital dump on the cornice their batch of students in summer outfit.
Mohamed and some of his "roommates" stayed in the center. A researcher in social anthropology came to conduct interviews for the purpose of a study. To those who visit them, migrants distribute a text they have printed in three languages - Arabic, English and French - and in which they summarize their situation. "We are dying in Tunisia, in pain and suffering, without any assistant [sic], can we read there We are not migrants but refugees and asylum seekers."
Residents of the La Marsa Youth Center are "refused" by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). In Tunisia, asylum and protection issues are delegated to UNHCR. Although a signatory to the 1951 Geneva Convention relating to refugees, Tunisia has not adopted a legal framework necessary for its application.
"Tunisia is not a country of naturalization"
Asylum seekers from La Marsa all have the same route. Foreign workers in Libya, they were forced in 2011 to leave their host country during the revolution that led to the death of Muammar Gaddafi. "The UNHCR then chartered buses to take us to Tunisia," said Mohamed, "they told us that they would protect us there."
"There" is "Choucha", a Tunisian camp open near the border town of Ben Guerdane to cope with the influx of people fleeing Libya at war. Between 2011 and 2013, some 30,000 refugees were welcomed there. After UNHCR's review of their case, some were able to benefit from "resettlement" in a third country, such as the United States, Canada, Norway or Germany. Mohamed, he saw his file rejected, "without the UNHCR can give me a valid reason". Originally from Darfur, from which he fled armed conflict to join Libya, Ibrahim also suffered a rejection of his file. For him, "the translators did not do their job well, they did not explain our situations well".
Deprived of a status they deem deserving, the "failed" Choucha decide to stay in the camp, even after its closure in 2013. They will remain there for six years, living in difficult desert conditions, without water or electricity. The only help they get, they say, is the Libyans who cross the border every day. "They saw us at the edge of the road and brought us food and drink," recalls Mohamed. In June 2017, the Tunisian army dismantles the site. And the last remaining asylum seekers are taken to La Marsa.
Eight years after their arrival in Tunisia, they still claim that UNHCR is reviewing their case. "We maintain our right to seek asylum in a Western country, says Brima, also Sudanese from Darfur, here it is not a country of naturalization because it does not respect the right of refugees."
"UNHCR has admitted that it made mistakes in 2011 because it was overwhelmed," said Mohamed, "but now they have time to look back on our demands." On the side of the UN agency, it is maintained that La Marsa applicants are not eligible for refugee status. "I fled Côte d'Ivoire in 2009 because some people wanted to kill me," said Mohamed without giving more details.Libya was a refuge for me, but I arrived in Tunisia because of a war, we are all victims of the war, we are not here by gaiety of heart. "
"Like in a prison"
For the "rejected" of La Marsa, the situation is all the more complicated as they refuse to stay in Tunisia, which has offered to stay within the framework of a program of "local integration". "Integration does not work," says Mohamed.
"At the time of Choucha, 450 migrants accepted the offer of the government to integrate them, recalls Ibrahim.They received 1,500 dinars [460 euros] .. After three months, they had nothing and have returned to the camp, some have returned to Libya and others have taken a boat to try to reach Europe, some of whom have died at sea. " For Brima too, Tunisia does not offer the guarantees of a safe and protective country. "We would not be able to work: Tunisians are already suffering from unemployment, and they are leaving by successive waves by boat to try to go to Europe," he says.
In August 2017, some residents of La Marsa went on hunger strike. Without success. In eight years their situation has not changed. Although they have no legal status, their presence is tolerated. But since they refused "integration", they say, emergency aid has been removed. The 35 migrants, however, have a room in the center put at their disposal by the government. The premises are well maintained but "we do not have clean water," laments Mohamed. "Without money, we are sometimes forced to drink it, there is not a month without someone getting sick."
"We are in a prison," Brima said, "we're not going outside because we can not buy anything." Some in the evening sometimes leave to beg in town. "It is the individuals who help us," says the Ivorian asylum seeker, who says he still has the strength to travel regularly to Tunis to assert their case with human rights associations. "But others do not have the strength In eight years we have had many promises and we are in the same situation What can we believe today? with whom we play. "