By Oyintari Ben
The African Union has slammed the President of Tunisia for his comments against African migrants living in his nation, and has warned against “racialised hate speech” that could be harmful.
This week, President Kais Saied created controversy by claiming that “hordes” of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa were robbing Tunisia of its population and increasing violence.
Later, Saied tried to convince “legal” immigrants that they were welcome. However, he persisted in asserting that people living illegally in Tunisia were altering the nation’s demographics.
The African Union Commission claimed in a statement that it had summoned Tunisia’s representative for an urgent meeting to express “great astonishment and concern at the form and substance” of the remarks on behalf of the continental bloc.
In a statement released on Friday, the African Union Commission Chairperson, H.E. Moussa Faki Mahamat, strongly denounced the terrible statement by Tunisian authorities that targeted fellow Africans and violated both the letter and the spirit of the organisation’s fundamental values.
Members of the AU, according to Faki, have a duty to “treat all migrants with respect, wherever they come from, stop from racialised hate speech that could harm people, and prioritise their safety and human rights.”
Saied was accused of employing hate speech by Tunisian rights organisations. However, the president claimed those who made the claims “desire division and strife and wished to undermine our relations with our brothers.”
Saied urged his national security council on Tuesday to take “immediate measures” to address irregular migration. Saied, who has gained almost complete control since a spectacular July 2021 coup against parliament, urged them to do so.
Almost 21,000 nationals from sub-Saharan African nations reside in Tunisia, a country with a population of over 12 million, according to official statistics cited by the FTDES, the majority of whom arrived there illegally.
