Stranded in a strange land, and waiting for death
By Vivian Yee
For nearly three weeks now, more than 1,000 men, women and children from Africa have been clinging to survival in the no-man’s lands at Tunisia’s borders. A few scrubby trees offer fitful shade, videos taken by migrants show, and border guards from neighboring Libya and Tunisian aid workers occasionally drop off water and a bit of bread. Otherwise, there is nothing.
Tunisian authorities dumped the African migrants there after rounding them up in the Mediterranean port of Sfax, hours away, where growing numbers have boarded boats to nearby Europe this year. Many were beaten by officers; a few have died in the desert, where there is little to no medical care, migrants and rights groups say.
Over and over, they sent pleas for help from the dwindling number of phones they managed to keep charged: “Please help us. We are dying,” one wrote to The New York Times on Saturday. “We don’t have any food and water,” begged another. “We are stranded. If there’s any way you can help us…” By Sunday, the text messages had stopped.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/20/world/africa/tunisia-african-migrants.html
https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/stranded-in-a-strange-land-and-waiting-for-death
https://www.omanobserver.om/article/1140429/opinion/stranded-in-a-strange-land-and-waiting-for-death