By: Assme Ben Akil
Assme Ben Akil holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and is currently studying "Languages and Cultures of the Islamic World" at the University of Cologne. Her academic interests focus on the MENA region and on the critical examination of Eurocentric structures that continue to cause harm.
Josephus On Jah Thomas is a refugee and activist from Sierra Leone, who has been living in Tunisia since 2020 with his wife and son. In this interview, he speaks about racism, violence, lack of asylum access and the reality for Black migrants in Tunisia.
Trigger Warning: This interview discusses racism, and forms of violence.
Would you like to introduce yourself in whatever way feels comfortable for you?
My name is Josephus On Jah Thomas. I am Sierra Leonean by nationality. I’m currently living in Tunisia, and I am here with my wife and my son.
How are you doing these days? How would you describe the situation right now?
The situation for us, you can describe the situation right now for Black people in Tunisia, whether in the olive fields or across the cities, it goes on and gets more intense each and every week, with different patterns and different forms of violence targeting us migrants and refugees.
How long have you been in Tunisia?
I’ve been here since 2020 until today. We just thank God for life anyway. I arrived here in the first week of January 2020, and now it’s 2026.
Tunisia currently doesn’t have a functioning asylum system. How does that affect your life and your options right now?
Talking about the asylum system here in Tunisia, this system has been inactive since 2021. It became even more inactive around 2023. When I arrived in 2020, I tried to seek asylum because I understand the reason why I fled from back home. But the system was not there to give me even the chance to tell my story or explain what I am running from.
Currently it is just getting worse because the institutions are always silent. Even when we try to reach out to UNHCR Tunis through emails or social media, so that they can understand what we are going through, they are still quiet about the violations and the abuse. It is really affecting lives. It is affecting dreams and homes. It is taking away talent.
There are a lot of Black people who have gone mad in Tunisia, and there is no help for them because of the absence of this institution, especially the asylum system, which has exposed us to more violations from the Tunisian government and citizens.
Many people have spoken about anti-Black racism in Tunisia. What have you experienced or witnessed yourself?
My experience of anti-Black racism in Tunisia happened in February 2023, after the presidential speech. At that time I was working in construction. I was building a small dam far from the city of Tunis, about a 55-minute drive away. When the speech came out, a friend called me. At that time, my wife and I were living in Ariana. My friend called to tell me there was an ongoing attack across the neighbourhood. He tried to reach my wife but she was unreachable. I also tried to reach my wife but she was unreachable. I had to leave the place where I was working because it was an emergency. My boss was not around, but I locked the tools that I normally used for working and left.
When I arrived in the area where we lived, it was very chaotic. People were running, especially young Tunisian thugs who normally attack us. But based on the presidential speech, it gave them more confidence to do whatever crimes they wanted. I met a couple of Guinean and Gambian guys who were trying to flee, and I joined them because we met on the road. I saw them running and I also ran. I tried to find somewhere safe and observe what was going on. I saw many people being chased. These thugs were holding knives, machetes, stones, and sticks.
It was a horrible experience for me because I was worried about my wife and my son. I didn’t know what had happened to them. I managed to reach my apartment but my wife and my child were not there. Someone called me, a comrade, and told me that people were rushing to Ariana, because they believed it was safer there. I went there to check if my wife was there. It took three days before I could finally contact them.
The other violent experience I’ve experienced here was from the police, which was also in 2023. I was a front goal organizer for the sitting protest that we did in IOM and in UNHCR in Tunis, which was around April. Since February until April we were doing continuous sitting protests, singing songs or shouting slogans in front of UNHCR and IOM, because we occupied that place at that time. The atmosphere was very tense and all migrants who were able to escape from the violence organized themselves at IOM.
After some couple of weeks we spread ourselves to UNHCR and started amplifying our voice and telling them about what we go through. We were asking by then for evacuation.
But all of that effort did not yield a good result. In April, the police went wild on us in the capital. They shot a lot of tear gas on us, both at UNHCR and IOM, in front of the UNHCR staff. We had been having a lot of back and forth with UNHCR staff and IOM, because we were seeing them as complicit in the violation, the abuse, and the violence that we go through by the hands of Tunisian police and Tunisian citizens, especially those citizens who have racism in them.
As I was saying, there was a lot of tear gas that was shot. They made a lot of arrests. When it happened, I was the only leader who was arrested during that process, because some of my colleagues knew that this thing was going to escalate and some of them were able to escape. But for me, it happened that I was just entrapped while trying to find my wife and my kid after the protest, and the police had already arrested people. On that line I was trying to find the right direction where my wife and my son went.
Most of those security personnel, the police, know me, because most of the time we are engaged whenever an issue happens between us and the citizens. With UNHCR we try to dialogue and try to solve issues. So most of them know that I am very active. I was chased and caught and beaten. Even today I still carry the injury with me, and I need medical help for it.
Based on the system here - I did not trust the system in Tunisia, so I had to take a pause and try to endure the pain that I go through, hoping that I will be able to escape from here and receive the rightful medical treatment that I need. It was really a horrible experience, and I wish no one should endure such a thing. Words cannot explain what I was going through. After they arrested me, I was taken to prison.
I am still thankful that I am out and still alive, still struggling and still trying to amplify my voice. But it was not a nice experience at all. It is a dark experience that left me with dark memories, of how the head of state tore things apart and gave space for people who were already waiting for the right moment to strike us. And the security authorities who are supposed to protect us also fully pledged themselves to violating and abusing human rights.
What would you want people in Tunisia to understand about your situation?
I want people in Tunisia to understand about our situation is that we are not happy and we didn’t choose to be asylum seekers, refugees, or migrants. But we are forced in a system that led us to flee. And many of us who are here are capable of contributing to society by our skills or our talent or by pursuing our dream.
Today it happened that we are in this situation where people are quick to judge us and call us names. We know we have some comrades who normally break the law of the land. But what we don’t understand is why it keeps happening that whenever a Black person, a migrant, does something, the rest of the community is tagged. It shows how little-minded most of these people think. And I believe a well-civilized world will not tag a whole community based on one or two people’s crimes. It makes no sense.
We are just trying to play our own part in society and contribute. But it happened that we are having a lockdown and the door is not open for us. And today it might be us. People should know that the world is a circle - what goes around comes around. Imagine the Tunisians themselves finding themselves stuck in another country and undergoing these kinds of things.
There have been protests and political tensions in Tunisia recently. Do you feel that migrants and refugees are being heard in these conversations?
We migrants and refugees in Tunisia have not been heard, even though we keep giving testimonies, witnesses, and evidence of what we go through, the violations and the abuse. Yes, we have not been heard, and the institutions have just acquired silence.
Nothing is changing. Things are just getting worse and more brutal. And the brutality is not only for us - the guys or men. No. Even little kids, pregnant women, disabled people, and people with different sexual orientations or gender identities undergo a lot of discrimination by the authorities themselves. Nothing is changing anyway. So it is like no one is hearing our voice or our struggle.
Have you experienced solidarity or support from Tunisian people or groups?
We have experienced solidarity and support from Tunisian groups, especially like FTDES (Forum Tunisien pour les Droits Economiques et Sociaux) and others. It was in 2023, there were a lot of Tunisian solidarity movements and human rights movement groups that joined us.
But it happened that the way the government is oppressing and keeping in prison most of these activists or journalists or solidarity members. There has been a cut since 2024. Even if all the cases matter to them, they will just wish us all the best. One of the things that the government did is that each and every person that stands out for human rights or against human violations, especially if you want to show solidarity with migrants and refugees in Tunisia, you will be tagged as a money launderer or other charges.
Most of these people are afraid of imprisonment. That is why you see most of these Tunisian human rights organizations or Tunisian forums becoming quiet. Sometimes they try to speak, but they are quiet. And since 2024, as I said, we have not been in touch with any solidarity movement that assists us. Before, I normally used to brief them or give them updates about whatever emergency situation arrived to us.
If someone gets sick in the camps, what happens? Where can people go for medical help? Are there organizations or volunteers helping with medical care?
At first, we were doing free medical treatment outreach, but that ended late 2024. There were a couple of doctors that normally assisted people who were sick around the camps. Even if they tried to have access to the government hospitals across Jebiniana or El Amra, we were denied access. They were asking us for documents, when they fully know that we do not have documents. They ask for documents knowing that we do not have them, and that becomes the reason for abandoning minorities. Those medical doctors who I was able to put together were sad but still positive, but we are not having the support for them to continue traveling different kilometres every week or month.
Now when people are sick, they just need to call whoever they know who is medical personnel to assist. If the medical personnel cannot help, then either the person will lose their life within the community, or the community will try to go to Tunis. But to go to Tunis, movement for Black people is very difficult. Most of the time we lose comrades. Recently we lost a comrade who was sick. She was on her way to Tunis, but she was unable to make it because the sickness was too severe, and she passed away on the way. So it is very difficult for us to have access to medical treatment.
People like me and other community members work together to write emails, drop messages, and make calls to institutions so they can see how to make it easier for us to access medical treatment across Tunisia. But as I said earlier, the system is inactive, and the institutions that are supposed to respond to our emergencies are silent.
Do children have access to school or any kind of education?
Children do not have access to school or any kind of education, because you guys might be hearing that there are students here. Those students are people who used to flee and entered Tunisia first as migrants, illegally entering through Algeria or Libya. Our kids do not have access to school. Even if a kid is born here in Tunisia, he or she is not given any document saying that he or she is Tunisian, and he or she does not have access to school.
Also in terms of hospitality, which is medicine and medical treatment, the kids find it even more difficult. They make it more difficult even for kids who are born here in Tunisia to have access to medical treatment. And even if you have access to medical treatment here, the bill is high, because we are Black.
What kind of support would make the biggest difference for you and the community?
The kind of support that would make the biggest difference for migrants and refugees here in Tunisia is that we want people to knock on every door, parliament, policymakers, politicians. They have a role to play to stop the mistreatment we keep undergoing from Tunisians. The continuous brutality and human rights abuses by Tunisian authorities and racist individuals must stop.
European governments are tightening asylum policies and supporting border control in North Africa, including support for the Libyan coast guard. What would you want to say directly to people living in the EU?
We have an idea about providing education ourselves, which is for kids who have been born here and have never had access to school, we want to see how we can bring that project to light. Because the kids need it. They do not deserve what they are going through.
It is sad that the government of Tunisia and the governments in Europe, especially the Italian government, have these agreements with Tunisia that they should not allow us to use the Mediterranean to enter Europe. But they forgot to explain or tell them to do the rightful thing: to respect our human rights and allow us basic rights as human beings.
We want you guys to amplify our struggle. Each and every day we keep losing lives, young lives. 90% of us who are stuck here are young, vibrant youth, teenagers and young kids. Many children are between the ages of 0 to 7 years, and a lot of them make up around 50% of the community.
Note: Josephus On Jah Thomas deliberately asked not to be anonymized in order to testify his experiences and the experiences of Black migrants in Tunisia. He is also part of the collective “Refugees in Tunisia“ and posts on X: https://x.com/i/status/2026982165590712760
More information on the situation of Black migrants in Tunisia, legal and political backgrounds, can be found here: https://diamigo.net/the-kafkaesque-reality-of-black-migration-in-tunisia/
Refugees in Libya, Niger and Tunisia compile accounts of mistreatment, and criticize the failures of the UN and EU in the "Book of Shame." (https://www.refugeesinlibya.org/book-of-shame)
“This book was born from rage, from grief, and from the refusal to remain silent. It was born from the betrayal we witnessed and lived—at the hands not only of militias, traffickers, and governments, but of the very institution that claimed it was there to offer protection: the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Some of us endured that betrayal directly. Others stood beside those who did. Together, we refuse to forget.”
Author’s Bio:
Assme Ben Akil holds a Bachelor's degree in Economics and is currently studying "Languages and Cultures of the Islamic World" at the University of Cologne. Her academic interests focus on the MENA region and on the critical examination of Eurocentric structures that continue to cause harm.
