In Tunisia, refugees and migrants are expelled to the desert, left helpless
Al Jazeera
About 130 refugees and migrants say they were abandoned near the border with Algeria.
The welfare of a group of sub-Saharan African refugees and migrants, many just hoping to cross Tunisia for the security of Europe, is of growing concern to rights groups as they remain unaccounted for in the Tunisian desert near the Algeria border.
A group of 29 people, part of an initial cohort of 42 Sierra Leonean asylum seekers and irregular migrants who were abandoned in the desert by Tunisia’s National Guard with nearly 100 others, were rescued by rights groups late last month.
On being left by the roadside, the group of roughly 130 people splintered, and the Sierra Leoneans made their own way through the sand and scrub in the direction of what their guards had said was Algeria.
Twenty-four-year-old Anderson was among the Sierra Leoneans abandoned in the desert for 12 days before being rescued after a chance phone call from a friend initiated rescue efforts.
