Tunisia is both a transit and destination country for migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, primarily from sub-Saharan Africa. Significant numbers of migrants and refugees from countries such as Sudan, Chad, Guinea, Mali, and Cote d’Ivoire enter Tunisia irregularly, with some seeking work in informal sectors while others attempt perilous journeys by sea to Europe. Between 2019 and 2024, 14,570 foreign migrants entered Tunisia, 61.8 percent of whom were male and 38.2 percent were female. During that period, 33.2 percent were integrated into the labour market, 9.6 percent were unemployed, and 57.2 percent were outside the labour market.
Previously, conditions for refugees and migrants were considered to be generally better in Tunisia than in Libya and other North African countries despite the extreme precarity of their situations. In 2023, however, the situation began to deteriorate as the government adopted a more hardline approach to migration. President Saied said that “hordes of illegal migrants” were arriving from sub-Saharan Africa as part of a “criminal plan to change the composition of the demographic landscape in Tunisia.”
Observers documented a surge in violence against African migrants including raids, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and mass deportations to the borders with Algeria and Libya often characterised by extreme violence. FTDES has documented reports of officers shooting in the air when detecting irregular arrivals. Reports indicate that migrants are sometimes abandoned without food and water, and exposed to the risk of kidnapping, extortion, forced labour, torture, sexual violence, and death.
UN human rights mechanisms have urged Tunisia to improve their treatment of non-citizens and tone down xenophobic rhetoric. In July 2023, UN experts including the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, the Working Group of Experts on People of African Descent, and the Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants called on the government to “take immediate steps to end racist hate speech in the country, protect sub-Saharan migrants from violence, investigate reported acts of violence and ensure access to justice and remedies for victims.” The committee will also recall its April 2023 early warning to the state party, in which it denounced President Saied’s anti-migrant pronouncements as a violation of the CERD Convention and urged authorities to curb “all forms of racial discrimination and racist violence against black Africans, especially migrants from the south of the Sahara and black Tunisian citizens.”
Nevertheless, the abusive and discriminatory treatment has continued apace as has the xenophobic rhetoric from authorities. In April 2025, for example, the country’s Interior Minister Khaled Ennouri said that authorities were prepared to “confront all plans to alter the demographic composition of the Tunisian population.” That same month, authorities dismantled improvised camps around Sfax housing approximately 7,000 sub-Saharan migrants, setting tents on fire before arresting and deporting many of them.
Since May 2024 authorities have arrested and detained representatives of key civil society organisations working to protect the rights of people on the move in Tunisia, and closed key organisations. Amongst them are Mustapha Djemali and Abderrazak Krimi from the Tunisian Refugee Council, both of whom are accused of illegally sheltering sub-Saharan migrants and who have since been held in arbitrary pre-trial detention. Authorities also detained Sharifa Al-Riahi, Mohamed Jouo, and Ayad Bousalmi from the Terre d’Asile Tunisie; Saadia Masbah, president of the Manamti Association for Combating Racism; Salwa Ghraisa from the Association for the Activation of the Right to Difference; and Abdullah Al-Said from the Children of the Moon Association.
These practices have coincided with growing European support for the country’s border control and migration “management,” part of wider European border externalisation efforts in the region. This includes the July 2023 formalisation of an MoU between the EU and Tunisia, which included allocation of a 105 million EUR budget for bolstering border management, combatting smuggling, facilitating returns, and curbing irregular migration. In 2024, an investigation by The Guardian revealed that members of the Tunisian National Guard—an institution that has benefited from EU training and support—had subjected hundreds of migrants to rape, beatings, and other serious abuses.
In this submission to the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, the GDP and Forum Tunsien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux (FTDES) highlight key concerns regarding the country’s detention of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, as well as wider issues related to the treatment of these groups, including:
- Tunisia’s use of informal detention centres despite the absence of any clear legal basis for their operation.
- The detention of sub-Saharan migrants in prisons and “dépôts” (pre-trial detention facilities) following their sentencing for irregular entry, stay, and exit.
- The detention of vulnerable groups including children, victims of trafficking,
- Arbitrary detention at Al-Wardia, with those who have been detained here describing periods of confinement lasting several months, without judicial decision or the provision of detention or expulsion orders.
- Concerning detention conditions, including poor hygiene, inadequate nutrition, confiscation of property, and violent searches.
- Limited transparency surrounding migration-related detention, as few observers are able to enter the country’s informal detention facilities.
- The suspension of UNHCR’s RSD procedures in June 2024 at the request of Tunisian authorities, which has left hundreds of people unprotected and exposed to arrest and detention.
- The marked increase in raids, mass arrests, and forced displacement of migrants, often to border areas with Libya or Algeria, since 2023.
