Banjul: Over half of the 296 migrants who were returned to The Gambia in a two-week period were stuck in Libya, according to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday.
A ministry spokeswoman confirmed that 140 Gambians were returned home between June 21 and July 4 as a result of authorities in Senegal, Mauritania, and Morocco seizing boats carrying people from the west African country.
According to a statement from the ministry, there were 231 Gambians aboard the three boats, but many of them "absconded" before being brought back. On June 24, 156 Gambians who had been stranded in Libya were repatriated, according to the report.
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Human Rights Watch claimed on Thursday that since July 2, when there was violence against migrants in the city of Sfax, Tunisia has been evicting hundreds of sub-Saharan Africans to a desert region close to the Libyan border.
The statement said that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was closely working to determine their numbers and confirm their nationalities as part of the evacuation procedures "regarding the disturbing video of migrants in Tunisia circulating on social media."
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A wave of racist attacks in Tunisia prompted several West African countries, including Burkina Faso, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, Mali, and Senegal, to repatriate hundreds of their citizens earlier this year.
It came after a tirade by the president of Tunisia in which he accused "hordes of illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa" of committing crimes and claimed that there was a "criminal plot" to alter the demographics of the nation.