Abidjan - Almost 300 people returned from Tunisia to Mali and Ivory Coast on Saturday after boarding repatriation flights, fearful of a wave of violence since the president launched a tirade against migrants.
Last month President Kais Saied ordered officials to take "urgent measures" to tackle irregular migration, claiming without evidence that "a criminal plot" was under way "to change Tunisia's demographic make-up".
Saied claimed that migrants were behind most crime in the North African country, fuelling a spate of sackings, evictions and attacks.
The African Union expressed "deep shock and concern" at his remarks, while governments in sub-Saharan Africa scrambled to bring home hundreds of frightened nationals who flocked to their embassies for help.
A group of 135 Malian nationals arrived in Bamako late Saturday, an AFP journalist reported.
They were welcomed by Defence Minister Sadio Camara and the minister for Malians living abroad Alhamdou Ag Ilyene, who explained that Mali's government had chartered their plane.
The minister said 97 men, 25 women and 13 children had been on board.
In Abidjan, a flight carrying 145 passengers also landed late on Saturday. They were welcomed by Prime Minister Patrick Achi and several ministers, an AFP journalist said.
They were taken to a reception centre, where they will spend three days receiving medical and psychological care before being reunited with their families.
'I'm not safe'
On Saturday morning, an AFP photographer saw the Malian group leave their embassy in Tunis, boarding buses to the airport where a chartered plane awaited.
"The Tunisians don't like us, so we are forced to leave," Bagresou Sego told AFP before boarding the bus.
Adrahmen Dombia, who arrived in Tunisia four years ago, said he had to stop his university studies mid-year. "I'm going back because I'm not safe."
Another Malian migrant, Baril, said he had a permit to stay in Tunisia but joined the repatriation flight anyway.
"We ask President Kais Saied with great respect to consider our other brothers and treat them well," he told AFP.
A first group of 50 Guineans was flown home on Wednesday.
According to official figures, there are around 21,000 undocumented migrants from other parts of Africa in Tunisia, a country of around 12 million people.
Critics accuse Saied, who has seized almost total power since July 2021, of seeking to install a new dictatorship in the country, which is grappling with inflation and shortages of essential goods.
Vigilante violence
Since Saied gave his speech on February 21, rights groups have reported a spike in vigilante violence, including the stabbings of African migrants.
Jean Badel Gnabli, head of an association of Ivorian migrants in Tunisia, told AFP from the airport that the group leaving on Saturday had "spent the night in hotels".
The whole community was living in fear, he said earlier. "They feel like they've been handed over to mob justice."
Ambassador Savane said 1,100 Ivorians out of around 7,000 in Tunisia had applied to be repatriated.
Michael Elie Bio Vamet, head of an Ivorian student association, said 30 students had signed up for the repatriation flight despite having permits to stay.
"They don't feel comfortable," he told AFP by phone. "Some of them were victims of racist acts. Some are at the end of their studies, but others discontinued.
"There are attacks almost every day, threats, they are even being kicked out by landlords or physically attacked," he added.
Dozens arrested
Many African migrants in Tunisia lost their jobs and homes overnight.
Dozens were arrested after identity checks, and some are still being detained.
Migrants whose countries have embassies in Tunisia rushed to them for help.
The embassies of Ivory Coast and Mali provided emergency accommodation this week for dozens of their citizens evicted from their homes, including young children.
Citizens of other African countries whose countries have no diplomatic representation in Tunisia set up makeshift camps outside the Tunis offices of the International Organization for Migration.
Among those heading home are dozens of fee-paying or scholarship students who were enrolled in Tunisian universities and in the country legally.
Meanwhile in Tunis, Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union rallied in the capital on Saturday in what appeared to be the biggest protest yet against President Kais Saied, staging a show of strength after his recent crackdown on opponents.
Many thousands of protesters filled Habib Bourguiba Avenue, the main street in the capital, holding banners that read "No to one-man rule" and chanting "Freedom! End the police state".
They were marching after weeks of arrests targeting prominent opponents of Saied, who has staged his first major crackdown since he seized wide-ranging powers in 2021, shutting down parliament and moving to rule by decree.
"We will continue to defend freedoms and rights, whatever the cost. We do not fear prisons or arrests," UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi told the crowd.
"I salute the jurists and politicians in Mornaguia prison," he added, referring to recent detainees.
Hamma Hammami, head of the Workers Party, said protests were the answer to what he called Saied's "creeping dictatorship". "He wants to spread fear but we are not afraid," he said.
The crackdown is the biggest since Saied's seizure of powers and his opponents say it is increasingly clear that he has dismantled the democracy won in the 2011 revolution that triggered the Arab Spring and will end the freedoms it brought.
Saied has denied his actions were a coup, saying they were legal and necessary to save Tunisia from chaos.
Crackdown
The UGTT was initially slow to criticise Saied while political parties accused him of staging a coup, but as the president consolidated his grip while ignoring the union and other players, it began to openly challenge him.
A senior union official was detained last month for organising a strike by highway tollbooth operators, prompting the UGTT's newspaper to accuse Saied of declaring war on the organisation and its million members.
This week authorities barred foreign labour union leaders from entering Tunisia to take part in the rally in solidarity with the UGTT, and Saied said he would not accept foreigners joining protests.
The size of Saturday's rally underscored that the union remains a powerful adversary that Saied may struggle to bat aside as he moves to sideline other opponents in the wake of a parliamentary election that had very low support.
With Tunisia's economy in crisis, state finances on the brink of bankruptcy and shortages of key goods, the potential for public anger may grow.
Over recent weeks police have detained more than a dozen prominent opposition figures, mostly tied to the coalition of parties and protesters that is planning to rally on Sunday, accusing them of conspiring against state security.
Those arrested include politicians from the Islamist Ennahda, which was the biggest party in the shuttered parliament, leaders of a protest group, the head of Tunisia's main independent media outlet and a prominent businessman.
"Saied is threatening everyone here. Parties, civil society, unions. All freedoms ... Tunisians are here to say we cannot accept populism and nascent dictatorship," said Najeh Zidi, a teacher at the protest
AFP and REUTERS