Abstract
Based on the case study of Tunisian cities, this chapter focuses on how these cities have been involved in a variety of initiatives, actions and programs in order to provide assistance and seek to integrate foreign migrants on their territories. The aim is to describe their main patterns of reception and to compare them, when fruitful.
The targeted cities are those of the border region with Libya and Sfax and Sousse, with different migratory contexts from one city to another. Two major turning points have been investigated: (1) the migration waves of 2011 which coincided with the “Arab uprisings”, when the cities of South-East Tunisia were in the forefront in welcoming and assisting migrant workers and Libyan families fleeing the war and (2) The Covid-19 global health crisis between 2020–2021, during which many Tunisian cities organized campaigns in aid of migrants in precarious conditions.
After having launched, from 2018 to 2021, a process of decentralization and transfer of competences and means from the Centre to the local authorities, the political change of 2021 (presidential coup) has stopped the process by abolishing the Ministry of Local Affairs and attaching the municipalities to the Ministry of the Interior. Many municipal officials expressedfears that Central authorities will return to dominate local communities.
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1 Introduction
In today’s world cities are the human settlements that host the majority of the world’s population. Therefore, cities are more affected by population movements than the countryside, both outward and inward: internal migration, forced internal displacement, international migration, international asylum and asylum-seeking (UNESCO, 2016).
The Mediterranean Cities of North Africa, such as the Cities on the European side of the Mediterranean, and MENA region countries receive or are crossed by a large number of migrants: workers, displaced persons and refugees, both nationals and foreigners (UN-Habitat & ICMPD & UCLG, 2019). These Cities find themselves in the front line of receiving and housing these vulnerable migrants who will be subsumed into the poor and marginalised urban classes in the host cities.
Indeed, at different times in their recent migratory history, Tunisian cities have welcomed or seen a large number of migrants pass through, most of them in an irregular and vulnerable situation, when they had neither the means nor experience to meet the needs of these migrants or to try to organize their integration in these cities as well as possible. Some municipal officials, driven by a very strong personal commitment, have thus launched actions and initiated programs to improve responses to the needs of migrants. But they were faced with the absence of legal texts adapted to the new migratory context which makes Tunisia a country of settlement for migrants from sub-Saharan Africa.
On the other hand, the decentralization process, initiated in 2018 and still at the experimental stage, did not allow local authorities (municipal councils) to have the financial means or the necessary competences to establish the beginnings of local management of migrations. These constraints were amplified in 2021, by the coup of the Tunisian president who changed the constitution and abolished the Ministry of Local Authorities and attached the municipalities to the Ministry of the Interior, which raised fears of a halt to decentralization.
The objective of this chapter is therefore to describe and understand the actions of actors and stakeholders around municipalities, especially since they may no longer be repeated if the control of the Tunisian central power is strengthened.
The chapter is organized around four sections: the first one describes the Mediterranean migration trends and their expected impact on the Mediterranean cities where migrants stop for a little or a long time. The second section will deal with the experience of welcoming migrant workers, refugees and families who fled the war in Libya in 2011. The third section will discuss the partnership between local actors in the cities of Sfax and Sousse to meet the needs of, mainly, sub-Saharan migrants. The fourth section will present the experience of the Tunisian cities during the health crisis of the Covid-19 pandemic, with a focus on the action of the municipality of Sousse. The conclusion is dedicated to current political context in Tunisia and its possible impact on the decentralization process.
2 Mediterranean Cities at the Crossroads of Migratory Flows in the Region
According to FRONTEX,Footnote 1 in 13 years (2008–2020) 2.6 million people have landed illegally on the EU’s Mediterranean coasts, of whom 2.1 million (or 83%) in 7 years (2014Footnote 2 and 2020), compared to 482,000 (or 17%) in the past 5 years (FRONTEX, 2009…2021Footnote 3).
Before reaching European shores, these migrants, whether internal or international, have already spent varying amounts of time in the Cities of North Africa and the Middle East. Once landed on European shores, these illegal migrants will pass, stop or settle in the various Cities where local authorities, often in association with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs), try to respond to the needs of these migrants, a challenge that has already been faced by Cities on the Southern and Eastern shores.
The aforementioned Southern Mediterranean Cities have been asked to assume the role of reception platforms either for irregular migrants intercepted or rescued at sea before reaching Europe, or for those expelled from Europe after reaching European soil. The municipal authorities of these Southern Cities are equally expected to deal with the consequences of migrant shipwrecks by taking in charge both the DNA analyses and burials of the bodies of victims brought back from the open sea or washed ashore.
In the face of the increased tightening of entry and residence measures, nationals from Mediterranean third countries as well as from other distant places such as the Sahel and Western Asia are obliged to use third-country Cities either as stopovers or as settlement sites before carrying out their migration journey to Europe. These migration policies consist, on the one hand, of tightening the conditions of entry and residence in Europe, and, on the other hand, of outsourcing border controls to third countries and expanding them to sub-Saharan Africa.
Regarding the central Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia), “[...] the readmission agreements signed by EU Member States and Mediterranean third countries since the end of the 1990s (and until 2020 for Tunisia), have allowed the expulsion, over a span of 9 years (2011–2019), of 118,845 nationals of the three countries: 58168 Moroccans (49%); 33,945 Tunisians (28.6%) and 26,741 Algerians (22.5%) (Frontex, 2010...2020). (Boubakri, 2021).
As far as Tunisia is concerned, “[…] In 10 years (2011–2020), 65,335 Tunisians crossed the Mediterranean irregularly towards Italy, 43% of which in 2011 alone, the year of the Tunisian revolution. Although the flows slowed down in the following years, they have accelerated in the last 4 years, with new peaks in 2020 (14,000 arrivals in Italy) and 2021 (almost 18,000). Except for 2011, these figures are unprecedented since the outbreak of the irregular migration phenomenon in the late 1980s’ (Boubakri, Ibid). ¾ of Tunisian irregular migrants come from cities, and especially from working-class neighborhoods (FTDES, 2017).
Thus, the cities of the Mediterranean in general, and specially Tunisian cities, are today faced with an increasingly visible and widespread presence of migrants either nationals or foreigners (mostly Sub-Saharans, but also Syrians) who have often suffered many forms of abuse, violence and sequestration, at the end of long travel routes, crossings, stops and bypassing controls. These precarious conditions have exacerbated the already vulnerable status of migrants, thus requiring Cities of transit or settlement to provide urgent measures to rescue, assist and protect them.
3 Reception and Assistance to Exiles Who Fled the 2011 War in Libya: The Experience of the Border area’s Cities (Actions and Stakeholders)
Since the 2011 uprising, Tunisian Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have played a crucial and often a decisive role in migration and asylum issues. The emancipation of the associative field has enabled the CSOs, which were repressed during the authoritarian regime of former President Ben Ali, to address issues such as migrants’ rights, immigration policies, controlling irregular migration, and dealing with Tunisian missing victims of irregular migration following shipwrecks and tragic sea accidents off Italian islands.
Just after the toppling of the Ben Ali regime, there were unusual waves of migration initiated by young Tunisians who had been desperately waiting for years to cross the borders to Europe.
Initially, the city-port of Zarzis (in South-Eastern Tunisia, not far from the Tunisian-Libyan border) became a real “migratory hub”, attracting thousands of young people from the villages and cities of the South-East wishing to leave to Europe. 6300 departures were thus recorded in 15 days (from 15 to 30 January 2011), from Zarzis and its surroundings, i.e. an average of 400 departures per day (Chouat & Liteyem, 2011).
One month after the fall of the Tunisian regime, and the triggering of the first wave of migration to Italy, Tunisia found itself faced with one of the greatest migratory and humanitarian crises of recent decades. In the aftermath of the outbreak of the Libyan conflict on 17 February 2011, a massive exodus of hundreds of thousands of foreign workers including Tunisians left Libya and headed to Italy contributing to the increasing rates of clandestine migration. More than half of them crossed the Tunisian borders, while the rest were distributed between Egypt and other neighbouring sub-Saharan countries (especially Niger and Chad). The importance of crossings to Tunisia is explained by the geographical proximity of the Tunisian border towns (Ben Gardanne, Zarzis, Médenine, Tataouine, and the urban centres of of Djerba island) and the Libyan towns of Western Tripolitania, where more than 60% of the Libyan population resides (Pascal & Moriconi-Ebrard, 2020) and where at least 2/3 of Libya’s economic activities are concentrated. In a report published in early October 2011, IOM estimated that 722,000 migrant workers have left Libya since the beginning of the conflict, of which 313,000 have entered Tunisia and 230,000 went to Egypt. The remainder was divided between Niger (83000) and Chad (52000) (IOM., 2011).
As soon as it broke out, this major humanitarian crisis mobilized the new Tunisian authorities, particularly the army, which made a major contribution to managing these flows and organizing the gradual deportation of the majority of these people to their countries of origin.
Four towns in South-Eastern Tunisia (Médenine, Ben Gardanne, Zarzis and Houmet Souk in the Djerba island) played a major role as logistical platforms for the repatriation operations (by air, sea or road) of hundreds of thousands of migrants who fled Libya. This operation, was one of the IOM’s largest humanitarian operations involving almost 200,000 migrants repatriated in a few weeks. While the UNHCR took care of the refugees who fled Libya within the framework of its mandate (Geneva Convention), the IOM and its partners had to take care of all the other migrants, especially that neither their embassies in Tunisia nor the host country itself had the means to respond to such enormous needs.
Despite the political instability that followed the revolution, the Tunisian population also mobilised massively to supply and take care of the needs of these refugees. The Tunisian media broadcasted appeals for solidarity: in supermarkets throughout the country, food collections were organised and, for several weeks, food aid convoys, mattresses, medicines and volunteers could be seen on the main road linking the capital to the Southern region (Boubakri & Potot, 2012).
Thanks to the spontaneous and massive surge of the Tunisian population, communities and civil society in the very first weeks of the crisis, humanitarian organizations (UNHCR, IOM, International Red Cross and Red Crescent, international NGOs, etc.) managed to take over and became massively involved in the relief, assistance and repatriation of migrants and refugees.
In less than a year (January–September 2011), Tunisia had to manage several waves of exodus from Libya: Tunisians who had immigrated there, foreign workers and Libyans. It has thus received, housed, cared for and repatriated hundreds of thousands of refugees.
On the other hand, while the vast majority of foreign workers who arrived from Libya were re-routed to their countries of origin, 3000 to 4000 refugees and asylum seekers remained at the Tunisian-Libyan border in camps set up by international organizations, including the UNHCR. The Choucha refugee camp, set up in tents in the middle of the desert, was occupied by refugees and asylum seekers from countries in conflict such as Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan, Côte d’Ivoire, and Nigeria.
After the first two waves of migration in the winter of 2011 (the exodus of Tunisians to Italy on the one hand, and the exodus of foreign migrant workers to Tunisia and other countries bordering Libya on the other), Tunisian cities welcomed a third wave, mainly composed of Libyan families who had fled the armed conflict and the NATO bombings. Since the beginning of the spring, daily entries into Tunisian territory reached a high level of border crossings (as example, between 20 and 21 June 2011, 6700 people were registered at the land border with Libya).
During the summer of 2011, when the fighting intensified and affected the major Cities in North-Western Libya, more than 100,000 Libyan family members were hosted by the Tunisian population and civil society organisations. This number had been growing steadily as the fighting drew closer to Tripoli and the major coastal towns in the West, between Misrata and the Tunisian border.
The border towns in Southern Tunisia in particular were at the forefront of receiving Libyan refugees. Data collected by UN organizations (such as the IOM and the UNHCR), or CSOs, show that the Cities of the Southern Tunisian governorates received 80% of the refugees most of them of modest conditions. Tens of thousands of other, wealthier families and individuals, went directly to settle in the larger coastal cities of the Centre and North of the country (Greater Tunis, Nabeul, Sfax, Sousse, etc.). In the South, especially in the rural areas and in the villages, Libyan families were welcomed within Tunisian families and benefited from independent parts of the houses. The ethnic and cultural proximity and the habits and customs shared by families on both sides of the borders facilitated this propinquity, which was absent in other large coastal Tunisian Cities, where Libyan families rented independent accommodations without mixing with Tunisian families.
4 Cities of Sfax and Sousse: Dealing with Migrants Needs in Attractive Cities
Located in an attractive coastal area (Eastern Center of Tunisia), Sfax and Sousse are respectively the second and the third Tunisian cities in term of population size. Economic activities and factories in both cities attract several people, Tunisians such as Foreigners.
5 City of Sfax: Becoming Sea Border Area with Europe
The second largest city in Tunisia, and an economic metropolis, the city of Sfax is attractive to foreign migrants, as well as to internal migrants. Indeed, the city of Sfax offers many opportunities for informal work, in the industries and factories of the city, in poultry farming, peri-urban livestock, caretaking and personal services in families. Its location as a coastal city opposite the Tunisian island of Querkennah, itself located opposite the Italian island of Lampedusa, makes Sfax a meeting point for migrant trafficking networks and illegal crossings to Italy. Indeed, the foreign presence in Sfax has diversified greatly, especially after the uprising of 2011.
The presence of Libyans is historical. Sfax is usually regarded as the “second city of Libya” after Tripoli. After 2011, in a context of civil war and insecurity that still lasts, Sfax has become the main city of reception and stay of Libyans for reasons related to security, care in the city’s policlinics, or sometimes to do business.
The private universities of Sfax welcome more than 2500 students, the vast majority being Sub-Saharans. Since they are not entitled to accommodation in the university halls of residence, they are scattered in many neighborhoods where they rent individual housing or in private homes. But their socialization remains weak and limited.
The third category of foreign migrants strongly present in Sfax is composed of refugees and asylum seekers. Sub-Saharans are the most numerous because of the persistence of conflicts in the Horn of Africa, in the Sahel countries up to the Gulf of Guinea. They flee Libya and arrive in Sfax, which serves for some of them as a platform for preparing irregular crossings of the Mediterranean. Their status is halfway between irregularity and regularity, while their situation or asylum application is being processed by the UNHCR. Their presence in the city is therefore very volatile and changes regularly, which sometimes prevents humanitarian organizations from being able to provide assistance to the most vulnerable among them. Indeed, refugees are often victims of migrant smuggling and trafficking networks and arrive in Sfax after following long, costly, complicated and risky routes.
The fourth category, which is strongly represented in Sfax, is the irregular migrants who shoes to settle in Sfax for economic reasons: workers, cleaning ladies, adventurers, graduate students, many of whom are sub-Saharan, who extend their stay in Sfax to search a job.
Local actors in the city of Sfax have been confronted with the issue of immigration when they have had to respond to the specific needs of migrants with an irregular (and therefore vulnerable) situation in the city. Associative actors and international organizations have acted out of concern for the protection of the human rights of migrants and to provide them with the necessary assistance. This interest was also motivated by the need for migrant labor expressed by the city’s entrepreneurs and businessmen.
The regional labor inspectorate conducted a census of the number of migrants who were victims of exploitation and work accidents and classified them by nationality (UN-Habitat & ICMPD & UCLG., 2021a). For its part, the local section of the NGO Terre d’Asile Tunisie (TAT) often welcomes victims of trafficking, the majority of whom are Ivorian cleaning women who flee the families that employ and house them. In order to pay off their debts to the intermediaries of their journey to Tunisia, they work for free for the first 5 or 6 months after their arrival in the families. Half of these women are single, but ¼ of the married women have left their children in their countries of origin, the Ivory Coast in this case. The regional office in Sfax of the “National Instance for combatting trafficking of persons” (INLPT) has launched legal proceedings for the protection of migrants, especially women, who are victims of trafficking (Ibid).
Migrants present in the city, regardless of administrative status, gender, or nationality, are monitored by the Tunisian Association for the Fight against Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS (ATL/MST-Sida). Young men, women and single mothers are the main beneficiaries. The Sfax office of this association has paid, between 2017 and 2019, the costs of care for 19 people with AIDS thanks to the support of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS (Ibid).
To facilitate the registration at the Civil Registry of new births whose parents are sub-Saharan migrants in an irregular situation, the Municipality of Sfax encourages its staff to be flexible in the absence of a marriage contract or proper papers. A residence card is also not required when legalizing rental contracts filed by irregular migrants. The vulnerability linked to the irregular status of these migrants is aggravated by the difficulty of access to the city’s schools for the children of these migrants who do not know Arabic or French, the languages of instruction.
The Municipality of Sfax sometimes intervenes with hospitals and private clinics to facilitate the reimbursement of emergency hospitalization costs for migrants without health care cards. It also provides free services such as burial of deceased persons without family or community support among sub-Saharan migrants.
Local actors (State deconcentrated services in Sfax, the Municipality, foreign or Tunisian NGOs) are all subject to legal vagueness or the absence of internal legislation clearly recognizing the rights of migrants in an irregular situation, including the enjoyment of vital services such as health care, food or accommodation, despite the fact that Tunisia has signed international conventions for the protection of the human rights of migrants.
The Municipality of Sfax has been involved in numerous events designed and organized in Sfax for the benefit of migrants, especially sub-Saharan migrants, in partnership with United Nations organizations (such as the IOM or UNHCR), or NGOs such as “Médecins du Monde” (MdM) or Terre d’Asile Tunisie (TAT), or with regional administrations and professional organizations, such as the Farmers’ Federations.
Thus, there is a difference in approach between the local level (municipality, NGO) and the central level. The local actors, who declare that they refer to the humanitarian principles of assistance and protection of migrants, act and improvise responses to emergency situations in the urban neighborhoods. For their part, governmental actors (represented by the regional directorates of the Ministries), even if they never deny their attachment to the same humanitarian principles, act rather according to management and security logics.
6 City of Sousse: When the Commitment of the Partners Allows Good Responses
In Sousse, such as in Sfax, informal urban services such as hotels, restaurants, construction, industry, security guards at gas stations and parking lots, car washing, and home services (gardening, housework, baby-sitting, etc.) are attracting an increasing number of workers, especially sub-Saharans. These are vulnerable workers who do not benefit from employment contracts, social protection, and even less from the possibility of obtaining a residence permit.
Indeed, the rigidity of the Tunisian labor code makes it difficult for employers to declare the recruitment of foreign workers (Boubakri, H. & Potot, S. 2012) and to regularize their administrative situation. While official statistics (UN-Habitat & ICMPD & UCLG, 2021b), place the number of foreign workers who have obtained a work permit at the national level at 5757, these data are not available at either the regional or local level. As a result, local actors in Tunisian cities are still struggling with how to deal with the recurrent vulnerability of foreign workers face to rigid legislation and employers who do not make much of an effort to go beyond the rigidity of the laws and offer decent jobs to these workers.
The city of Sousse was the location of an original action aimed to assist migrants in the city (UN-Habitat & ICMPD, Op. cit.) This initiative demonstrated the strong commitment of local institutional and Civil Society actors.
The action involved three partners: the Municipality of Sousse, the regional clinic of the National Office of Family and Population (ONFP) and the IOM, which signed a partnership agreement in 2018 for assistance and access to health services for vulnerable migrants. The city of Sousse is one of six Tunisian areas that have benefited from this pilot experience to promote the well-being of migrants.
The ONFP opened its doors to foreign migrants in Sousse for consultations and interventions in the field of sexual and reproductive health and the treatment of STDs (Sexually Transmitted Diseases) and AIDS virus. Migrant women, like Tunisian women, benefited from the services of the clinic of the Office for the follow-up of their sexual and reproductive health as well as the medical follow-up of their children. The ONFP has also set aside a “youth-friendly space” (Espace ami des Jeune) frequented mainly by young migrant women, but also by young men, for confidential and anonymous screening for STDs and HIV and their follow up. The majority of young people attending this space were sub-Saharan, but other young people passing through Sousse from other countries (Algeria, Libya, Jordan, Syria...etc.) have benefited from consultations in this space.
In 16 months (September 2018–December 2019),Footnote 4 the total number of consultations reached 140, with an average of 10 consultations per month at the beginning to reach an average of 30/month during the fall 2019 (Ibid). The trend was on the rise on the eve of the onset of the Covid-19 health crisis, which lasted almost 2 years (2020–2021). The number of migrants who benefited from these consultations increased by 15–20% from month to month on the eve of the outbreak of the pandemic (Ibid).
In recent years, the church of Sousse has reactivated the charity service (CARITAS) which welcomes, guides and provides assistance to vulnerable migrants or those in difficulty (students whom parents have stopped sending money, landlords who have evicted them from their homes, difficulties in obtaining health care or food, difficulties with the police, etc.). The Sunday masses of the Catholic and Protestant churches bring together dozens of faithful from all occupations (students, workers, transients). They are spaces of meetings and sociability between the members of the sub-Saharan national communities of both sexes.
The main Trade Union (UGTT) has slightly evolved in its vision of defending foreign workers in Tunisia. The UGTT was initially hostile to the immigration of foreign workers to Tunisia. The union saw it as a threat to the acquired social rights of Tunisian workers. Nevertheless, its position has changed significantly in response to the abuses suffered by foreign workers without a contract, who live under the double pressure of exploitation by employers and legal proceedings. The UGTT offices in Sfax and Sousse have responded to the call of migrant workers’ NGOs by reserving a “migrant space” within their offices in both cities. These spaces aim to be a frame to defend the economic and social rights of migrant workers and offer them “[...] regardless of their status, access to reliable information (legislation governing employer/employee relations, information on basic services, etc.), specific training (financial education, protection mechanisms in case of abuse, etc.) and concrete services (conciliation in case of labor disputes) [...]” (UGTT’s internal handwritten memo).
7 The Covid-19 Crisis: Cities Take Ownership of Migration in Their Local Agenda
Like many countries, the Coronavirus crisis forced Tunisia to declare total containment of the population in March 2020. The entire country was shut down, which cut off the sources of income of many active socio-professional categories. This left the working poor and those in the informal sector without resources. From the beginning of the crisis, many NGOs identified migrants as one of the vulnerable groups in need of assistance. Calls were made for food and cash collections for migrant workers who had lost their sources of income and could no longer feed themselves, their children or pay their rent.
From their side, the government authorities decided that migrants, whether they are single or in families, regular or irregular, will benefit, in the same way as Tunisians, from social assistance (financial and in kind). Operations to collect and distribute aid have been organized in many cities where a large number of migrants are living, particularly sub-Saharan migrants.
Thus, Tunisian and migrant CSOs have joined forces and coordinated with municipal councilors (mayors and deputy mayors, members of councils) to gather information on migrants in need. For their part, UN organizations (IOM, UNHCR), and international NGOs such as “Médecins du Monde”, took part in this mobilization and provided the necessary financial means for assistance.
Initially, migrants, who are the target population of these programs and who mostly originate in Sub-Saharan Africa were very reluctant and wary of approaching the municipality building or the NGOs’ offices out of fear arrest. However, the hesitation quickly dissipated later giving way to large numbers of migrants seeking to join in to benefit from the assistance programs. Municipality headquarters were the destination of many waiting to be registered for aid. Paradoxically, thanks to social assistance campaigns, this crisis made vulnerable and destitute migrants visible. The number of requests quickly exploded, thus allowing NGOs and municipal authorities to gather the necessary data from migrants to better understand their profiles (administrative status and socio-demographic and economic characteristics).
In order to avoid abuse, the donation campaigns’ partners shared the lists and carried out cross-checks in order to obtain reliable lists that allowed for targeted and transparent aid.
Obtaining this data from civilian sources outside the Ministry of the Interior is a precedent in the context of institutional migration management. For example, the figures presented by the Municipality of Sfax included a number of 8000 to 10,000 migrants on the lists which surprised everyone including the Municipal Council itself. Other Municipalities reported an average of 1000 migrants (Sousse, Zarzis, Médenine) to 2000/2500 migrants per commune (La Marsa and Raoued).
8 “Sousse Solidarity Without Borders”, the Response of the Municipality of Sousse to the Crisis of Covid-19
The municipality of Sousse responded to calls from organizations or groups of migrants living in Sousse: students, workers in the informal sector, families. The City Council has thus brought together its local partners around an action named “Sousse Solidarity without Borders”. The stakeholders (such as CSOs, regional authorities, professional organizations and international organizations) have designated the Municipality to be the leader of this coordination in order to collect and distribute aid (financial and in-kind donations) to migrants residing in Sousse.
A media campaign was launched to ensure the support of the public opinion and the city’s inhabitants. Social networks as well as local and national media were mobilized to support this campaign. A toll-free number was set up for donors and aid seekers to contact the Aid Management committee. An e-mail address was reserved for the transmission of the names of aid applicants in order to centralize the data and avoid duplication of aid or abuse.
Companies and individuals have contributed to these donations. Most have requested to remain anonymous. UN organizations (IOM, UNHCR) have also contributed to this campaign of solidarity with migrants, again through the Aid Management committee coordinated by the municipality. The Tunisian Red Crescent, in addition to providing aid in kind, paid directly to the owners the rents of the housing rented by migrants unable to pay.
The municipality of Sousse has also provided medical assistance to migrants or their families (psychological assistance, payment of the costs of consultations and analyses (doctors, psychologists and laboratories).
The successive waves of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021 pushed the Municipality of Sousse to organize new campaigns to help migrants whenever necessary, always with the support of NGOs and international organizations. More than 95% of the beneficiaries were nationals of sub-Saharan African countries. This health crisis more than the migration crisis presented a unique opportunity for municipalities to demonstrate their ability to rally the energies and efforts of a network of local actors and stakeholders to assist migrants living there.
This new organisational capacity to mobilise and coordinate is perhaps the main lesson to be learnt from this experience. The crisis not only allowed communes to measure and test their organizational capacities but also enabled them to understand the gaps and shortcomings in terms of means and skills to be transferred from the Centre to the local level in order to establish a local governance of migration.
In fact, through this involvement, the medium and long-term objective of the municipal authorities, is to strengthen their demands for a greater degree of decentralization and for providing them with further financial assistance in order to meet the migrants needs.
Officials in some Cities (Zarzis, Médenine and Raoued) complain about the lack of resources and gaps in the legal framework preventing Cities from intervening and deciding freely on their communal territories. The international organizations (IOM and UNHCR) are criticized for the lack of funds and assistance offered to cities to enable them supporting migrants.
9 Conclusion: Political and Future Considerations
After the 2011 uprising and the regime change, the implementation of local democracy was considered as a tool to guard against authoritarianism. The Code of Local Authorities (CCL), promulgated in 2018, announced the partial transfer of the power from the central authorities to the local ones. However, in 4 years (2018–2022), no formal competence was transferred to the municipalities.
The 2014 constitution, which reserved an entire chapter (Chap. 7) for local authority, was suspended in July 2021, then abandoned in 2022, and replaced by a new constitution following the referendum organised in June 2022 by Tunisian President Kais Saïed in the context of the state of exception.
The new 2022 constitution almost totally ignored local and regional power. The issue is hardly mentioned in Chap. 7 (“Local and regional authorities”), which contains only one vague article (Article 133), that goes as follows (“Municipal councils, governorate councils and regional councils, as well as structures endowed by law with the status of local authority, shall exercise the local and regional services as determined by law”).
The new Constitution can be considered as a serious setback to the already faltering decentralization process adopted between 2011 and 2021. This process has now been interrupted. As in other domains, migration and migrants will be the first losers in this new context which tends to concentrate power in the Tunis Power Centrer at the expense of the lower local levels of the political system (regions and communes) and intermediate institutions (political parties, trade unions and other professional organizations, CSOs, etc.)
More generally, and despite these prospects, migration is emerging as a subject of endless debate among the different segments of society as well as political actors including local authorities, politicians, political parties and organizations. The Cities of the third countries in the Mediterranean have been involved an intrinsic part of the last decades migratory movements which have been characterized by their increasing rates along with their changing origins and destinations controlled by the contingent geopolitical context..
Cities, as well as their governing bodies, are frequently called upon to manage the arising emergencies and to respond to the needs of their citizens, including foreigners. As we have shown throughout this chapter, demands emanate from above; as they mainly come from foreign partners and central governments In order for Cities to become more involved in migrant reception and integration agendas and programs. Likewise, these demands come from below, i.e., from NGOs and foreigners residing in these Cities and seeking to benefit from better urban services (housing, transportation, education, work, etc.).
However, as has been demonstrated, the process of decentralization and transfer of powers to local authorities is still slow in countries like Morocco. As for Tunisia, it is suspended for now and had been reluctant prior to 2022. However, in Algeria, where signs of relaxing the center’s grip on power are absent, the process has not yet launched. After the reconciliation of the different warring factions in Libya, which is war-ridden and in total chaos, the process of decentralization will take time to mature. Overall, it seems that time for urban governments to take part in the integration of migrants in Southern Mediterranean cities has not yet come.
Notes
- 1.
European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
- 2.
The year 2014 year marks the outbreak of the “Migration crisis” in Europe linked to the massive exile of Syrians and Afghans Nationals.
- 3.
Frontex. Annual_Risk_Analysises (2009…2021)
- 4.
Data was not updated after the end of the pandemic.
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Boubakri, H. (2024). Migrants and Refugees in the Mediterranean Cities: Reception, Regulation and Actors – Tunisia a Case Study. In: Zapata-Barrero, R., Awad, I. (eds) Migrations in the Mediterranean. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-42264-5_7
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