360 migrants rescued at the border with Tunisia

The Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR), based in Libya, called on international organizations for help on Monday 17 July. “360 migrants, including women and children” rescued in recent days at the border with Libya need “urgent medical and humanitarian relief”, assures AOHR. The Libyan authorities assure that these sub-Saharan migrants were abandoned in the desert by the Tunisian police, very close to the common border between these two countries.

This Libyan branch of the Arab Organization for Human Rights “greeted the welcome” in Libya of migrants with “experienced difficult humanitarian situations” before being “rescued by the Libyan border guards”, says AOHR.

On Monday, the Libyan Interior Ministry claimed to have “documented the evictions [de ressortissants subsahariens] by the Tunisian authorities towards the Libyan borders”, by publishing testimonies of several migrants gathered in a Facebook video. Tunisia concluded on Sunday a “strategic partnership” with the European Union including an important migratory component endowed with aid of 100 million euros. This provides “the development of a system for the identification and return of irregular migrants already present in Tunisia to their countries of origin”according to the text released on Sunday.