Tunisia: more sub-Saharan clashes and residents in Sfax

(ANSA) - TUNIS, JULY 05 - Third night of tensions and clashes between local residents and sub-Saharan migrants on the outskirts of Sfax. The road to Sfax is blocked with tires given flames and a dense succession of stones between rival groups with residents who ask the authorities to expel irregular migrants from the city. The police had to intervene to bring the situation to order. This was reported by the private radio of Sfax Thyna Fm, pointing out that the tension had already risen in the afternoon at the end of the funeral of the forty-year-old Tunisian stabbed to death the day before by a group of sub-Saharan migrants, a tragedy for which the prosecutor of Sfax has ordered the pre-trial detention for three Cameroonians while another is on the run.
In the working-class neighbourhoods of Sfax, Tunisia's second largest city, where migrants live, verbal and physical violence between residents and migrants is frequent. This violence increased according to observers after a speech on 21 February by President Kais Saied who condemned illegal immigration and presented it as a demographic threat to his country. During a visit yesterday to the headquarters of the Ministry of Interior in Tunis, Saied spoke of the situation in Sfax "after the criminal act that took place there," the presidency said in a statement. Tunisia "does not accept that those who do not respect its laws reside on its territory, nor that they are transit countries (to Europe) or resettlement land for citizens of some African countries," he said. Most of the migrants from sub-Saharan Africa, in fact, arrive in Tunisia and then try to reach Europe by sea, landing clandestinely on the Italian coast. According to Saied, behind illegal immigration there are "criminal networks" that aim to disturb the "social peace in Tunisia". According to Romdane Ben Amor, spokesman for the Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES), a local NGO that follows migration issues in Tunisia, the current tension in Sfax was however "expected" and calls for a speech "that reassures me". (ANSA).