Tunisian security forces have committed "serious abuses" against black African migrants, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Wednesday, calling on the European Union to suspend migration control funding to the country.
The New York-based watchdog said it had interviewed, since March, more than 20 migrants and asylum seekers, almost all of whom reported suffering "human rights violations at the hands of Tunisian authorities."
Seven were among "up to 1,200 black Africans expelled or forcibly transferred by Tunisian security forces" to the country's desert border regions with Libya and Algeria this month.
HRW said most of the abuses it documented came after President Kais Saied in February accused "hordes" of migrants from sub-Saharan Africa of bringing violence, alleging a "criminal plot" to change the country's demographic makeup.
On Sunday, the EU and Tunisia signed a memorandum of understanding for a "strategic and comprehensive partnership" on irregular migration, economic development, and renewable energy.
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