64 Burkinabe nationals who were in Tunisia landed in Ouagadougou on Wednesday March 15, 2023, thanks to a special flight chartered by the Burkinabe government. Their arrival follows the Tunisian president’s controversial remarks about sub-Saharan migrants.
“We have been able to bring in a first contingent of 64 compatriots” who were in Tunisia, said the Deputy Minister for Regional Cooperation, Karamoko Jean Marie Traoré, assuring that it is “the responsibility of our government to ensure the security and well-being of its citizens”. “There will eventually be other groups that will enter through other schemes,” he added.
On February 21, Tunisian President Kaïs Saïed called for an end to the presence of “hordes of illegal migrants” from sub-Saharan Africa as part of a “criminal enterprise hatched at the dawn of this century to change the demographic composition of Tunisia”. These remarks, described as racist and hateful, had angered civil society organisations, the African Union and the international community. Several sub-Saharan African countries such as Mali, Ivory Coast and Guinea have repatriated their nationals from Tunisia to their countries of origin.
Thus, these 64 Burkinabe migrants, mostly young people, who returned manu militari on Wednesday, hope to count on the help of the transitional government of their country for their reintegration. “We ask the Burkinabe government to provide us with aid to meet our needs,” the young Gubré Moussa told the press, as reported by Anadolu. He also thanked the authorities for having thought of helping them in this difficult time.
“We thank the government of Burkina Faso, the President of the Republic and the Ambassador of Burkina Faso in Tunisia. In any case, it was not easy. We were chased out of our houses in Tunisia. Our landlord chased us out and we went to sleep at the Burkina Faso embassy for 17 days. We went through a very difficult situation,” he said.
According to the minister in charge of regional cooperation, “more than 800 students” from Burkina Faso are in Tunisia, adding that the sixty or so migrants who returned on Wednesday evening are mainly workers.
