Almost 300 Ivorians were repatriated on Thursday from Tunisia, where migrants say they no longer feel safe after President Kais Saied had said they represented a demographic threat.
The ambassador of Ivory Coast in Tunis, Ibrahim Sy Savane, said 287 people including 21 toddlers were flown back to Abidjan on a jumbo jet chartered from Ethiopian Airlines.
With the latest departures, a total of 1,053 Ivorians have been repatriated from Tunisia since chartered flights began in early March, Savane told AFP.
Saied on February 21 accused immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa of causing a wave of “violence and crime”, saying they aimed to “change the demographic composition” of Tunisia and separate it from the Islamic and Arab worlds.
In the days after Saied’s speech, migrants had reported an upsurge in racist attacks and many were evicted into the streets by landlords fearing large fines or prison for housing them.
The spokesman for the Tunisian National Guard said Thursday that the coastguard had intercepted 2,034 migrants since Wednesday, among them nine Tunisians, and recovered the bodies of seven others.