Refugees flee Tunisia after president's call for crackdown

Foreigners in Tunisia have been fleeing out of the Arab country after president Kais Saied made controversial "racist" remarks, claiming "a criminal plot" was underway to flood the country with blacks.

"145 people are leaving this morning after having spent the night in hotels," Jean Badel Gnabli, head of an association of Ivorian migrants in Tunisia, told AFP on Saturday. "They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice."

In a February 21 speech, Kais Saied appealed to officials nationwide to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming that the enemies of the country wanted "to change Tunisia's demographic makeup".

He accused sub-Saharan migrants of being behind most of the crimes committed in the North African country.

The Tunisian president's remarks fueled a spate of sackings, evictions, and physical attacks against the black migrant community in Tunisia.

The African Union expressed "deep shock and concern at the form and substance" of Saied's racist remarks.

In the meantime, governments in sub-Saharan countries have launched campaigns to repatriate hundreds of fearful nationals who flocked to their embassies for help.

Hundreds of West African migrants from Guinea, Mali, and the Ivory Coast have already left to avoid violent attacks against them by mobs.

MG