During the night of July 3, Tunisians attacked the homes of sub-Saharan migrants in Sfax, the country's second-largest city. The violence was sparked by the death of a Tunisian, blamed on three sub-Saharan Africans. Footage filmed by the assailants and residents shows the outbreak of violence. The police then picked up many of the migrants and abandoned them in the desert.
Tarak Mahdi, a Tunisian Member of Parliament, live-streamed and published the aftermath of an altercation between a Tunisian man and three others, who he said were sub-Saharan migrants in the city of Sfax.
"Some Africans stabbed a man this evening," he said to the camera. He then shows the body of a man lying on the pavement, blood running down the road. A woman comes from the end of the street and cries, "My son!"
Mahdi explained that the man is in a critical condition, calling on the police to intervene immediately
"The Africans who stabbed him have escaped, so everyone needs to get involved."
The FRANCE 24 Observers team was able to verify around about a dozen videos filmed and shared online on this shocking night.
Another video filmed at the same location shows uniformed National Guard officers and civilians questioning several Black men, who are then loaded into official vehicles. There is another crowd of young men there, some armed with rods.
Later that evening, police vans were on patrol in Tunisia’s second largest city Sfax, where the incident took place. Videos filmed by local residents show police raids in various parts of the city, with crowds of Tunisians watching on.
The footage below shows crowds of young men watching the police raid on a road linking the district of Sakiet Ezzit to Sakiet Eddaier (in the northeast of Sfax). Some had even climbed onto the roofs and walls of nearby houses. In the street, several official vans were parked, flashing lights, including one belonging to the ‘special intervention brigade’.
The crowd starts singing a verse of the national anthem, and applauds and encourages the gendarmes who maintain a security cordon between the crowd and the migrants being arrested. "There are over 200 people here", says the person filming the video.
Another video filmed on the notorious night in the al-Habib district of Sfax shows crowds applauding an arrest operation carried out by Tunisian police in the homes of sub-Saharan migrants.
The person filming exclaims, "Long live Tunisia! Sfax is not a colony. Get out, get out! Go home!"
The crowd repeats a chant often used by football fans in defiance of the police: "We don't f*ck with the police, we're only afraid of God." The chant their way of supporting those taking justice into their own hands.
'All the Black people who passed by this area were stopped or beaten up'
On July 4, Guillaume (not his real name), a migrant from a sub-Saharan African country, reached out to the FRANCE 24 Observers team. He lives in Gremda. He lives in Gremda and states that on July 3 homes in his neighbourhood were attacked by groups of Tunisian men.
He managed to escape and says he's now in a safe place. He recounted what happened in shaky voice messages.
I can't even raise my voice where I am talking to you at the moment. I'm very scared, many of my loved ones have been taken away by the National Guard in Sfax.
On July 3, in Gremda, Tunisians came armed with rods and machetes [Editor's note: several eyewitness accounts mention the use of knives, though the FRANCE 24 Observers team has been unable to verify this with visual evidence], during the night at the Café des Chinois [known to be a gathering place for sub-Saharans in Sfax]. All the Black people who passed by this area were stopped or beat up. They wounded several people with knives too.
We couldn't film the attack on July 4th because we were too scared. The assailants threw stones at our heads. They broke into our neighbour's house, smashed her furniture and windows, searched the house and smashed the TV. They also set fire to the house. When the sub-Saharan neighbours called the police, they turned up but took away the sub-Saharan people who were outside, without checking their papers or letting them collect their passports.
Luckily, I was able to escape into the night, I ran, I passed a car leaving the city and the driver let me in. I still can't believe I'm alive.
'They dropped us off in the mountains, then the police and the buses turned back'
An unknown number of sub-Saharan Africans were loaded onto buses. On the morning of July 5, our Observer Alpha (not his real name), from Guinea, sent us messages from "the desert" where he was dropped off. He had travelled all night in a bus accompanied by two other vehicles belonging to the Sfax regional urban transport company SORETRAS, also carrying sub-Saharan Africans.
They put us on a bus at around 10:30pm, then we took the road out of Sfax. At 11:45pm, the bus stopped 10km from the centre of Sfax, and we stopped on the road to pick up even more people. The bus was packed, and a second bus joined the convoy. They checked people in the street, and as soon as they saw a black person they made him get on the bus. They didn't ask for any papers or residence permits making them get on.
I said to the policeman before I got on the bus: "We've heard that you're sending us to the Libyan desert or to Algeria". The policeman told me no, that they were going to send us to a safe place. But this morning we were dropped off on what looks more like the Algerian border. We were dropped off in the mountains, and then the police vehicles and buses turned back. We're walking towards the border, hoping to run into Algerian border guards or to enter Algerian territory.
Read moreThe growing xenophobic violence against sub-Saharan migrants in Tunisia
'If you make the mistake of hanging around near the police station, they'll send you into the desert'
Those who escaped the police are now in hiding at home, like Paul (not his real name), a Cameroonian resident of the Ennasria district in the centre of Sfax.
This morning [July 5], at the post office in Ennasria, in the centre of Sfax, people who had come to withdraw their money via Western Union were taken away: the police came and rounded everyone up.
But as I live in the city centre, I'm a little relieved: at least here, it's not as easy for the Tunisian residents to make a lot of noise as in the outlying areas.
You have to stay in your house; outside you can be stopped by the police at any time. If you make the mistake of hanging around near the police station, they'll send you into the desert.
The police do nothing to look for the attackers, absolutely nothing.
According to the spokesperson for the Sfax justice ministry, 34 migrants were arrested the night of July 3 following altercations with residents in the Gremda district, where the initial murder took place.
Also, four Tunisians were taken into custody for having given shelter to illegal migrants in Sfax. To date, none of the Tunisians involved in the violence have been arrested or questioned.
Read moreXenophobia grows amidst raids and repeated attacks on sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia
On July 5, the public prosecutor's office issued a warrant for the detention of a further 33 illegal sub-Saharan migrants at the Sfax court.
These raids followed two shocking waves of xenophobic violence and deportations of sub-Saharan migrants. In February 2023, a speech by Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed prompted accusations of racism and xenophobia targeting sub-Saharan Africans in particular.
Read more‘They spit on us’: What’s really going on in the El Ouardia migrant centre in Tunis
