Tunis: As dozens of people demonstrated in Tunis in support of the migrants' plight on Friday, Tunisian rights organisations called for emergency aid and shelters for migrants who had been kicked out of Sfax the previous week.
Following the killing of a Tunisian man on July 3 in an altercation between locals and migrants, racial tensions erupted, forcing hundreds of migrants to flee or be forcibly removed from Tunisia's second-largest city.
Many migrants from poor and violent nations leave from the port of Sfax in search of a better life in Europe by risky Mediterranean crossings, frequently in improvised boats.
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Following the unrest in Sfax, hundreds of migrants were forcibly transported to hostile and desert regions bordering Libya and Algeria.
The Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights (FTDES) spokesperson, Romdane Ben Amor, told reporters on Friday that between 100 and 150 migrants, including women and children, were still stranded at the Libyan border.
He claimed that approximately 165 migrants who had been left near the Algerian border had been picked up, but he didn't say who picked them up or where they were taken.
According to Ben Amor, "migrants are moved from one location to another while other groups hide out in the wild in appalling conditions for fear of being discovered and meeting the same fate as those who are stranded on the borders."
He demanded that the migrants be provided with temporary housing and stated that the government must convey "a clear message" to Tunisians so that they will assist them regardless of their status.
Following a call from an anti-fascist coalition, about 100 protesters took to the streets of Tunis on Friday night to show their "solidarity with undocumented migrants."
The protesters also criticised Tunisia's police for "repressing us and expelling you (migrants).
Africa is home to Tunisia. They shouted, "Down with fascism, no to racism."
The head of a Cameroonian association meanwhile claimed that sub-Saharan Africans had been "arrested arbitrary" by police near the train station in Zarzis, south of Sfax.
In a video posted online by a fellow Cameroonian, a group of people, allegedly including women and children, are crammed into a warehouse in Medenine, which is also south of Sfax. "Around 300 have been arrested... just because of their skin colour," claimed Eric Tchata.
Ben Amor expressed concern that migrants might perish if aid and shelter are not provided right away and mentioned that the bodies of two had already been discovered.
According to Human Rights Watch, the migrants were abandoned to fend for themselves in the hot border regions where temperatures can reach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) without access to water or shelter.
After President Kais Saied in February accused "hordes" of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries of bringing violence, alleging a "criminal plot" to alter the demographic makeup of the country, Tunisia experienced an increase in racially motivated attacks.
President Obama's comments "gave people the green light to do what they liked to migrants," according to Naila Zoghlami, head of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women.
Alongside Ben Amor, she told reporters that since Saied's comments, women from sub-Saharan African nations have become more "vulnerable," with many claiming they have been sexually assaulted.
Saied continued on Friday, saying that what Tunisia offered migrants "is better than what they find elsewhere."
But we steadfastly decline to be a land of transit or settlement.
He reiterated his assertions that "criminal networks of trafficking in human beings" had victimised Tunisia.
Ben Amor disregarded Saied's comments, claiming that, contrary to what the president had said, "expulsing children and women is not a lesson in humanity."
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In a statement released on Friday, about 28 NGOs, both national and international, as well as labour unions and political parties, also criticised Saied.
They claimed that his speech "spurred crime" and merely provided some people with a "blank cheque" to commit "serious violence" against migrants.
A senior European delegation is scheduled to arrive in Tunis on Sunday to seal an agreement stipulating financial assistance for the North African nation intended to combat illegal immigration.
