Tunisia: Rampant violations against refugees and migrants expose European Union’s (EU) complicity risk
The Tunisian authorities have over the past three years increasingly dismantled protections for refugees, asylum seekers and migrants, particularly Black people, with a dangerous shift towards racist policing and widespread human rights violations that endanger their lives, safety and dignity, Amnesty International said today. The European Union risks complicity by maintaining cooperation on migration control without effective human rights safeguards.
In a new report, ‘Nobody Hears You When You Scream’: Dangerous Shift in Tunisia’s Migration Policy, Amnesty International has documented how, fuelled by racist rhetoric from officials, Tunisian authorities have carried out racially targeted arrests and detentions; reckless interceptions at sea; collective expulsions of tens of thousands of refugees and migrants to Algeria and Libya; and subjected refugees and migrants to torture and other ill-treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, while cracking down on civil society providing critical assistance.
In June 2024, Tunisian authorities ordered an end to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) role in processing asylum claims, removing the only avenue for seeking asylum in the country. Yet EU cooperation with Tunisia on migration control has continued without effective human rights safeguards, risking EU complicity in serious violations and trapping more people where their lives and rights are at risk.
“The Tunisian authorities have presided over horrific human rights violations, stoking xenophobia, while dealing blow after blow to refugee protection. They must immediately reverse this devastating rollback by ending racist incitement and stopping collective expulsions that threaten lives. They must protect the right to asylum and ensure that they don’t expel anyone to places where they would be at risk of serious human rights violations. NGO staff and human rights defenders detained for assisting refugees and migrants must be released unconditionally,” said Heba Morayef, Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International.
“The EU must urgently suspend any migration and border control assistance aimed at containing people in Tunisia and halt funding to security forces or other entities responsible for human rights violations against refugees and migrants. Instead of prioritizing containment and fuelling violations, EU cooperation with Tunisia must shift its focus to ensuring adequate protection measures and asylum procedures are available in the country, and incorporate clear, enforceable human rights benchmarks and conditions, to avoid complicity in violations.”
Amnesty International conducted research between February 2023 and June 2023 and interviewed 120 refugees and migrants from nearly 20 countries (92 men, 28 women, eight children aged 16–17) in Tunis, Sfax, and Zarzis. The organization also reviewed UN, media, and civil society sources and the official pages of local Tunisian authorities. Ahead of publication, Amnesty shared its findings with Tunisian, European, and Libyan authorities. No response had been received by the time of publication.
A crisis fuelled by racist rhetoric
Testimonies reveal a migration and asylum system designed to exclude and punish rather than protect. At least 60 of those interviewed by Amnesty, including three children, two refugees and five asylum seekers, were arbitrarily arrested and detained. Black refugees and migrants were targeted amid systemic racial profiling and successive waves of racist violence from individuals and security forces, triggered by the public advocacy of racial hatred, starting with President Kais Saied’s remarks in February 2023 and echoed by other officials and parliamentarians since.
The situation was aggravated by a surge of repressive measures targeting at least six NGOs providing critical support to refugees and migrants. This has had horrific humanitarian consequences and led to an enormous gap in protection. Since May 2024, authorities have arbitrarily detained at least eight NGO workers and two former local officials who cooperated with them. The next hearing in the trial of the staff of one of these organizations, the Tunisian Council for Refugees, is scheduled for 24 November.
‘We saw them drown’
Amnesty International investigated 24 interceptions at sea and spoke to 25 refugees and migrants who described life-threatening, reckless and violent behaviour by the Tunisian coastguard, such as dangerous ramming; high-speed manoeuvres threatening to capsize boats; hitting people and boats with batons; firing tear gas at close range; and the denial of any individualised protection assessment at disembarkation.
“Céline”, a Cameroonian woman migrant intercepted after departing from the eastern region of Sfax in June 2023, told Amnesty International:
“They kept hitting our [wooden] boat with long batons with sharp endings, they pierced it… There were at least two women and three babies without life vests. We saw them drown and then we could not see the bodies anymore. I have never been so scared.”
Despite ongoing concerns about the lack of transparent reporting regarding interceptions, in 2024 the Tunisian authorities stopped publicly sharing data on these operations after establishing a maritime search and rescue region (SRR) supported by the EU. Prior to that, they had reported a significant increase in interceptions.
‘Go to Libya, they will kill you’
From June 2023 onwards, Tunisian authorities started to collectively expel tens of thousands of refugees and migrants, mostly Black people, either following racially motivated arrests or following interceptions at sea. Amnesty International found that between June 2023 and May 2025, authorities carried out at least 70 collective expulsions, involving more than 11,500 people.
Tunisian security forces have been routinely dumping migrants, asylum seekers and refugees, including pregnant women and children, in remote and desert areas at the country’s borders with Libya and Algeria. They abandoned them without food or water and usually after confiscating their phones, identification documents and money, placing them at great risk to their lives and safety. Following the first wave of expulsions in June-July 2023, at least 28 migrants were found dead along the Libyan-Tunisian border and 80 migrants were reported missing.
These expulsions have been carried out without any procedural safeguards and in violation of the principle of non-refoulement.
While people pushed toward Algeria had to walk back from the border over weeks or faced risks of “chain refoulement” from Algeria to Niger, those sent toward Libya were often handed to the Libyan Border Guards or other militias who left them stranded or detained them in abusive facilities. Refugees and migrants in Libya are subjected to widespread and systematic human rights violations and abuses, carried out with impunity, that a UN fact-finding mission has found amount to a crime against humanity.
“Ezra”, an Ivorian man, told Amnesty International how Tunisian security forces expelled him to the Libyan border, overnight on 1-2 July 2023 from Sfax, with a group of 24 people, including at least one child.
“We reached the Libyan border zone at around 6am… One [Tunisian] officer said, ‘Go to Libya, they will kill you.’ Another officer said, ‘Either you swim, or you run to Libya.’ They gave us a bag filled with our smashed phones….”
The group attempted to walk up the coastline back to Tunisia, but Tunisian men in military uniforms intercepted them, pursued them with dogs, beat four of them and brought them back to the border.
Tunisian security forces subjected 41 men, women and children to torture and other ill-treatment during interceptions, expulsions or in detention.
“Hakim”, a Cameroonian national, described how officers drove and abandoned him and others at the Algerian border in January 2025:
“They took each of us one by one, surrounded us, they asked us to lay down, we were handcuffed… They beat us with everything they had: clubs, batons, iron pipes, wooden sticks… They made us chant ‘Tunisia no more, we will never come back’, again and again. They punched us and kicked us, everywhere on our body.”
Amnesty International also documented 14 incidents of rape or other forms of sexual violence by Tunisian security forces, some of which took place in the context of abusive pat or strip-searches conducted in a humiliating manner likely amounting to torture.
“Karine”, a Cameroonian woman, told Amnesty International that male National Guard officers raped her twice on 26 May 2025, first during an abusive strip search after an interception in the region of Sfax, then at the Algerian border after a collective expulsion.
EU reckless support at the expense of lives and dignity
Failing to learn from the devastating results of its cooperation with Libya, the ongoing EU-Tunisia cooperation on migration control has pursued and resulted in the containment of people in a country where they are exposed to widespread human rights violations. Such cooperation involves funding the Tunisian coastguard’s search-and-rescue capacities and providing training and equipment for border management to reduce irregular crossings to Europe.
The EU signed its Memorandum of Understanding with Tunisia in July 2023, developed without effective human rights safeguards, such as a transparent prior human rights impact assessment, independent human rights monitoring with clear procedures to follow up on allegations of violations, and an explicit suspensive clause allowing for the agreement to be suspended in case of violations. The European Ombudsman noted these shortcomings in an inquiry in 2024. This cooperation remains ongoing more than two years later, despite alarming and well-documented reports of violations. Yet, while prioritizing migration control at the expense of international law, it has been touted by European officials as a success, citing a significant reduction in irregular sea arrivals of people from Tunisia since 2024.
“The silence of the EU and its member states over these horrific abuses is particularly alarming. Each day the EU persists in recklessly supporting Tunisia’s dangerous assault on the rights of migrants and refugees and those defending them, while failing to meaningfully review its migration cooperation, European leaders risk becoming complicit,” said Heba Morayef.
Distributed by APO Group on behalf of Amnesty International.
