Human Rights Watch (HRW) called on Tunisia on Thursday to cease the collective expulsions of sub-Saharan African migrants. HRW also urged that Tunisia should allow migrants, which its government has sent to a dangerous area of the Tunisia-Libya border, access to humanitarian services.

According to HRW, Tunisian security forces have expelled an estimated 500 to 700 African migrants to the Tunisia-Libya border since July 2, without due process. The authorities first raided and arrested the migrants in and near Sfax, before moving them to Ben Guerdane, and eventually transporting them to the Tunisia-Libya border. This trapped migrants in a remote, militarized buffer zone, where they could neither enter Libya nor return to Tunisia.

According to HRW:

The people expelled were of many African nationalities – Ivorian, Cameroonian, Malian, Guinean, Chadian, Sudanese, Senegalese, and others – and included at least 29 children and three pregnant women, interviewees said. At least six expelled people were asylum seekers registered with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), while at least two adults had consular cards identifying them as students in Tunisia.

Previously , on April 4, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination issued an early warning and urgent procedure, calling on Tunisian authorities to oppose racist remarks and violence against black Africans. It stated that Tunisia’s Head of State had violated the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in February, by purporting that “hordes of illegal [African] migrants” arriving in Tunisia were part of a “criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape of Tunisia” and were the root “of violence, unacceptable crimes and practices.”

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) also issued a statement on March 8, reiterating that migrants deserve human rights and need to be protected. IOM also stated that it is trying to aid migrants with “dignified and human rights-based solutions”, while relying on Tunisia to support its work.

Tunisia is not the only country in the North African region to draw condemnation from HRW over their treatment of migrants.  On June 10, HRW condemned the treatment of migrants by Libyan forces, saying that migrants were treated under “incredibly violent and inhumane” conditions that are “absolutely unacceptable.”