Tunisia -

About 5 months ago, Nikki Yanga left her country, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, dreaming of improving her living conditions after moving to reside in Tunisia, but it did not occur to her that her dream would be turned upside down and that all she would wish for was her deportation and her return to where she came from due to the escalating wave of racism in this country.

It was not easy to convince Yanga - who speaks French - to talk about her status as an irregular immigrant to the media, as the color of her brown skin tended to turn yellow due to feelings of fear and terror of being taken to security centers or assaulted by people, especially after the statements of Tunisian President Kais Saied, who called It calls for urgent steps to be taken against immigrants.

The Congolese citizen was waiting in front of her country's embassy to hear a voice calling her to inform her of the approval of her request to be deported to the Congo immediately from Tunisia.

A demonstration in Tunisia to denounce racism against immigrants (Reuters)

The reason for coming

With bitterness, Yanga recalls the past to answer our question about the reason for her coming from her distant country to Tunisia. Her tears flow and her tongue stutters, suffocating from oppression. She says, "I no longer care about my country after the death of my father. I heard about Tunisia as a beautiful and tolerant country, so I decided to leave."

To travel to Tunisia, North Africa, from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Central Africa, Yanga took a regular car with Congolese friends, then crossed the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, Benin, then Niger to Mali, Algeria, and finally Tunisia.

Yanga says - in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net - that the path of her entry into Tunisia took 5 months, full of road hazards and concerns of falling into the grip of the police, but she succeeded thanks to her steadfastness in entering after crossing the border surreptitiously from Algeria 3 months ago.

On foot - and under cover of darkness - Yanga entered Tunisian territory with a group of irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa with the help of a smuggler, and she says, "We were about 20 people from the Congo, Guinea and Ivory Coast, and I paid the smuggler 250 euros."

Irregular immigrants take Tunisia as a starting point for Europe (Anatolia)

The dream turns into a nightmare

Right and Left Yanga turns around because of the fear that accompanies her, then she says that her dream of living and settling in Tunisia suddenly turned into a nightmare after she first failed to find a job to earn money from, which made her face the difficulties of making ends meet from hunger or homelessness because she does not have a house to rent.

She says, "I used to search every day in vain for a job or for someone to help me shelter in a house until I go to sleep, and every time the police harassed me." Despite all this, Yanga did not expect, since she came to Tunisia, that she would end up pleading with her country's embassy to deport her immediately, so that You rest.

On an unforgettable day, Yanga was subjected to a racist attack by young men who stole a bag in which she was holding her passport. "This attack happened only a few days after the Tunisian president's speech. His speech was inciting against us, and its results are beginning to appear," she says.

On February 21, Saeed called for "urgent measures" to stop the flow of irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, considering that this phenomenon leads to "violence and crimes" with the continuation of "hordes" of irregular migrants.

Human rights activists consider that the Tunisian president's speech fueled feelings of hatred against immigrants (the government's presidency page)

Rising tide of racism

Saeed also talked about that there is a "criminal arrangement prepared since the beginning of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia" with the intention of "settlement of irregular immigrants from Africa," but he hastened, after his first speech, to call on his interior minister not to attack immigrants.

Despite the Tunisian state's efforts to mitigate the impact of the president's speech and its repercussions on the situation of irregular migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, Yanga told Al-Jazeera Net that she did not want to complain to the Tunisian police after she was robbed because she feared being stopped and imprisoned because she had no documents.

Since the beginning of this year, the wave of racism against irregular immigrants from Africa has escalated through communication platforms that show their arrival in groups, and the Tunisian National Party launched a campaign to demand their deportation, while the authorities did not move a finger.

Video clips - posted by irregular migrants from Africa, on communication platforms - showed that they were subjected to physical assaults and assaults against their homes, and this coincided with a campaign of security arrests that included hundreds of migrants at a time when some accused the migrants of committing crimes.

While human rights organizations active in the field of migration are living in a state of emergency with the aim of providing assistance to vulnerable groups of irregular migrants, Guinea and Ivory Coast have begun evacuating their nationals from Tunisia, at a time when the Tunisian Foreign Ministry denied their forced deportation.

Tunisia is a major transit point for migrants and refugees seeking to cross the Mediterranean to Europe, including an increasing number of Tunisians themselves and citizens of other African countries. It is also a preferred destination for migrants from Africa to settle, especially after the revolution.

purely security approach

Hassan al-Hajj Massoud of Lawyers Without Borders says that the Tunisian authorities deal with the migration file with a purely security approach, expressing his fear that migrants will face major problems due to hate speech and restrictive laws related to irregular migrants.

And Masoud confirms - in a statement to Al-Jazeera Net - that the security detentions among irregular immigrants are approximately, according to unofficial estimates, 800 immigrants, explaining that they have become subject to expulsion from their work and from the apartments they rent and are subject to attacks because of racism.

On the other hand, a member of the Democratic Women's Association, Nabila Hamza, told Al-Jazeera Net that President Saeed's speech fueled feelings of hatred against irregular immigrants, and also flouted Law No. 50 related to the elimination of racial discrimination.

She denied what the president said about the growing number of irregular immigrants, stressing that the National Institute of Statistics determined their numbers in 2021 at more than 21 thousand people, including a significant number of students studying in private universities.

A member of the Association of Democratic Women said that private universities have been affected by hate speech against immigrants from Africa, who now choose other destinations to pursue their studies, indicating that Tunisia has lost its image as a tolerant country due to the growing racism and hate speech in an escalating manner.

In a recent statement, the African Union Commission condemned the statements of the Tunisian authorities against African migrants, while the Foreign Ministry expressed its surprise at the Commission's statement on the situation of the African community, and rejected what was stated in it.