Tunisia on the border with Algeria, migrants risk dying of thirst, cold and fatigue from the journey

ROME – The bodies of nine migrants from sub-Saharan Africa were found dead in recent days in Tunisia, on the border with Algeria. According to the non-governmental organizations local people died of thirst, cold, fatigue. The discovery took place near Haidra, in central-western Tunisia, not far from the Algerian border. An investigation has now been opened and an autopsy ordered to determine the cause of death, Kasserine court spokesman Riadh Nwiwi said. A year ago, in March 2022, four men aged between 20 and 35 were found dead in the same mountainous area of ​​Haidra. The causes of death were, even for them, thirst, fatigue and cold.

The Algerian migration route. In recent times, the flow of sub-Saharan migrants attempting to pass through Algeria to then reach Tunisia and continue with the central Mediterranean route has increased. Between January and April, the number of irregular entries into the European Union via the Mediterranean increased by almost 300 percent compared to the same period in 2022, reaching 42,200, according to updated data from Frontex. From Tunisia, whose coasts are only 150 km away from Italy, Frontex recorded a growth of 1,100 percent over the same period compared to last year.

The denunciation of the Tunisian Forum for economic and social rights. The Forum, which follows migration issues in Tunisia, confirms that the nine people died of cold, thirst and fatigue. Since it is not the first time that migrants have been killed by thirst or cold, the Forum called for the Tunisian state to intervene with an immediate and effective humanitarian response, setting up assistance centers in places of transit for people, including on the border between Algeria and Tunisia. The aim should be to protect people’s lives and to counter the murderous policies of the European Union – reads the Forum website – “which have confiscated the right to movement of the populations of the South”. It is not the first time that the NGO has accused the European Union of choosing to militarize borders and prevent people from seeking asylum in safe countries.

Tunisia as the European Union. People run away from their places of origin and travel very long distances, even on foot, endangering their own lives and those of their children, for complex reasons that have no easy solutions. But ignoring them – writes the Forum – means condemning any migration policy to failure. Underestimating the demographic imbalance between the North and the South of the world, for example, means not looking at reality. Pretending not to know the impact that climate change has in the southern hemisphere, more than elsewhere, with droughts and floods destroying agriculture and pastoralism, means not wanting to admit that the world is changing and migration policies, as well as are conceived, they can never stop this change. For the Forum, Tunisia is making a big error of judgment in treating migration on a par with European decisions, precisely because these choices ignore the structural reality. Because by aligning itself with the EU, Tunis renounces a leadership role capable of fueling an alternative reflection to the European dogma which has erected security as the only guarantee of peace and concord.