We learn from the Refugees in Tunisia network of the murder of our comrade Mohannad Saad Adam, a young man from Sudan, who had managed to reach Tunisia in the hope of one day making it to Europe. He was barbarously murdered, a friend who was with him was seriously injured and is now in hospital. They were shot by a Tunisian man, it is not clear whether he belonged to some organised group, or worse, to some armed corps in the service of the autocrat Saied.
Mohannad had left Sudan, where a forgotten conflict is raging that has already caused tens of thousands of deaths and over three million refugees. Passing through Libya, he had participated in the birth of the self-organised Refugees in Libya movement and the 100 days of protest in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Tripoli, and for this he had been arrested and detained in the notorious Ain Zara lager.
Violent attacks on refugees sheltering in the Plain of Olives, just outside the city of Sfax, which - like the whole of Tunisia - has become a dangerous place for any migrant, woman, man or child, are commonplace. The 'hunt for blacks', launched by Saied in February 2024 with a public incitement to racial hatred, took the form of military raids, attacks on the homes of refugee families, deportations to the desert on the border with Algeria and Libya, and raids by the National Guard at sea that left dozens dead.
This would be the 'safe country' of Meloni and Piantedosi. A country where in fact one man, Saied, strengthened by the millions of Italian euros paid in exchange for the outsourcing of the borders, had the vast majority of the candidates in the elections arrested before they were held and 'won' them with less than 30% of the population going to the polls. A country where political opponents, activists, lawyers, trade unionists, journalists, professors and teachers have been arrested on charges of 'denigrating the state' simply for exercising their right to criticism. This country is not a safe place for anyone.
We stand with the refugees in Tunisia, with all our Tunisian brothers and sisters who are fighting for freedom and democracy.
