President Saied refuses turning Tunisia into a country for migrant resettlement

Tunisian President Kais Saied declared that Tunis will not be a country of resettlement for Sub-Saharan migrants despite the European leaders' efforts to engage the North African state in curbing the migration flow.

"Tunisia will not guard borders other than its own. (...) We will not accept that Tunisia becomes a country of resettlement," stated President Saied Monday during his meeting with French and German interior ministers at Carthage palace.

France's Gérald Darmanin and Germany's Nancy Faeser arrived in Tunisia on Sunday for talks on security and migration with President Saied and other leading Tunisian officials.

On Monday, the French Interior minister announced US$28 million in aid to Tunisia to help curb the flow of irregular migrants across the Mediterranean Sea.

The French pledge comes a week after European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen offered 105 million euros to Tunisia for border management and combatting human trafficking.

Tunisia, highly indebted and in talks for a bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a key launchpad for migrants and asylum-seekers attempting to reach European shores.

The EU funding, part of a larger financial aid package to boost the Tunisian economy, is contingent on the approval of the nearly US$2 billion IMF loan that has been under negotiation since last year - although Saied has repeatedly rejected what he terms the "diktats" of the Washington-based lender pledging instead to tax the country's rich class to solve Tunisia's economic crisis.

The populist leader's opinions of migrants are no less controversial. Saied sparked a backlash in March after he characterised Sub-Saharn migrants as a "demographic threat" to his country in remarks that gave rise to a spike in attacks and mass deportations of sub-Saharan Africans in Tunisia.

Saied, today, says he is ready to cooperate on the migration file but with no resettlement of migrants on the table.

"With a common will, a new way of seeing things, I am sure that we will find adequate solutions," he said on Monday without articulating further.

Darmanin defended the "European approach to the migration challenge" and said that alongside African authorities, they would "fight against the networks of smugglers" and back the return of migrants to their home countries.

Meanwhile, the German interior minister Nancy Faeser has insisted on the importance of "respect for human rights" by the police and border guards in their operations in Tunisia."

The International Organisation for Migration (OIM) says 2,406 migrants died or disappeared in the Mediterranean in 2022, while 1,166 deaths or disappearances were recorded since the start of 2023.

The European ministers' visit comes on the heels of the sinking of a boat carrying migrants off Greece's southern coast, with more than 500 passengers presumed dead.

The incident has renewed criticism of Europe's years-long failure to prevent migration tragedies humanly.