A coalition of 46 human rights and humanitarian organisations has issued a scathing joint statement demanding the European Union (EU) immediately halt its funding for Tunisian migration control activities, warning that the EU is directly complicit in rampant human rights abuses.<\/p>\n
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The coalition’s warning comes exactly three years after the signing of a controversial Memorandum of Understanding on July 16, 2023. Under the deal, the EU pledged \u20ac105 million ($120.19 million) to Tunisia to stop boats carrying migrants and asylum seekers from leaving for Europe.<\/p>\n
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According to groups like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and SOS Humanity, the deal has normalised horrific violence against Black Africans, refugees, and migrants. Testimonies collected from survivors rescued at sea include harrowing accounts of torture, sexual violence, arbitrary detention, and racial profiling by Tunisian security forces.<\/p>\n
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Worse still, the EU-backed Tunisian Coast Guard is accused of violently intercepting boats at sea and forcing migrants back into a punitive system. Many are subsequently dumped and abandoned in the desert or trafficked into neighbouring Libya.<\/p>\n
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The human rights crisis has also spilled over into Tunisian civil society. Authorities under President Kais Saied have used the same EU-funded security apparatus to clamp down on political dissent, arrest journalists and lawyers, and criminalise local non-governmental organisations providing aid. Furthermore, Tunisian authorities suspended the refugee status operations of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in June 2024, cutting off any legal avenue for asylum.<\/p>\n
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The rights groups have slammed the European Commission for ignoring explicit warnings from the European Ombudsman and the Court of Auditors, urging the bloc to prioritise human rights over border enforcement.<\/p>\n
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–ChannelAfrica\/HRW–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":15148,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-39804","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Coalition of 46 NGOs demands EU freeze $120.19 million Tunisia migration funding","published_date":"2026-07-16 19:23:46","news_description":"Coalition of 46 NGOs demands EU freeze $120.19 million Tunisia migration funding","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39805,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39804\/revisions\/39805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}