By Oyintari Ben
A migrant initially from Sierra Leone told the BBC’s Newsday show that due to the country’s escalating racial tensions with Arabs, black people had no future in Tunisia.
Black sub-Saharan Africans won’t have a future in Tunisia, and neither will our children, said construction worker Josephus Thomas.
We ought to leave Tunisia, he declared, “even” if that meant travelling to another African nation.
Ivory Coast and Guinea are two nations that have offered to repatriate their citizens.
Tensions arose after President Kais Saied accused immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa of fueling a crime surge and labelled them a demographic threat.
Since then, black Africans have complained to the Media that Tunisia has become more racist.
Mr Thomas recounted a terrifying incident where he witnessed “Tunisian boys armed with sticks, sharp metal, knives and stones” pursuing some Gambian, Senegalese, and Guinean refugees.
He continued by calling the situation in Tunisia “messy and horrible” and claiming he had personally tried to evacuate by boat.
“If there’s a chance to get out by boat, I’ll take it because it’s better than living in Tunisia, where you never know what they’ll do to you next,” he said.
