An official from a local court and a witness both confirmed on Tuesday to news agency AFP that locals in a border zone between Tunisia and Algeria had found at least two bodies thought to be migrants from Saharan regions.
Nizar Eskander, the Tozeur Court’s designated spokeswoman, told AFP that “We have initiated an investigative inquiry into the deaths after the discovery of the bodies of migrants from sub-Saharan nations. At least ten days had passed since the discovery of the first body, and the second was discovered on Monday.
The two bodies belonged to young males, and we handed them over to civil protection, said a resident of the border region called Hazoua (Editor’s Note: close to border with Algeria), who asked to remain anonymous.
He continued, “Two buses arrived carrying about 100 migrants and left them in the desert” in recent days.
Many migrants are trying to get to the oases, where locals give them food and water, he continued.
A Tunisian person was killed amid riots between locals and migrants in the province of Sfax, leading to the expulsion of dozens of migrants from sub-Saharan African nations from Sfax (central-east). The second-largest city in Tunisia serves as a major entry point for people migrating illegally to Europe.
Non-governmental organizations allege that they were transferred to regions along the borders with Algeria and Libya.
In a Monday distress call to Agence France-Presse, Mamadou, a Guinean immigrant who was in the “Douar Maa” region on the Algerian side of the border, said he had “no water or food.”
Agence France-Presse was informed on Monday by Salma Belaali, the director of Human Rights Watch’s Tunisia office, that “all the migrants, numbering between 500 and 700, who were at the border with Libya, have been relocated to another place.”
However, many additional people who were driven toward the Algerian border are in danger if they are not swiftly saved, Belaali continued. According to the NGO, there are 150 to 200 people in similar predicament.
