Tunisian minister concedes ‘small groups’ of migrants were pushed back into desert no man’s land

By BOUAZZA BEN BOUAZZA
Associated Press

TUNIS, Tunisia (AP) — Tunisia’s interior minister has conceded that small groups of sub-Saharan migrants trying to enter the country are pushed back into the desert border areas.  In an interview with The Associated Press, Kamel Fekih says the security forces don’t engage in “collective” expulsions, dumping migrants into the sizzling hot border regions with Libya and Algeria. He rejected as “false allegations” remarks earlier this week by the deputy spokesman for the U.N. Secretary-General Farhan Haq who called on Tuesday for an “immediate end” to “the expulsion of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers from Tunisia to the borders with Libya and also Algeria.”