Médecins Sans Frontières - Testimonies from Tunisia

Unique Identifier Code / URN MSB168423

Date taken / Date Recorded 19/07/2023 12:00 AM

Country Mediterranean Sea, Tunisia

Commissioning section MSF-NETHERLANDS

Photographer / videographer / producer Stefan Pejovic

Copyright Stefan Pejovic/MSF

Usage Rights (MSF) External Media, MSF Fundraising, MSF Publications, Social Media

Formal Consent Copy available yes

Editor's rating ★★★ (F)

Video format h264 (High) (avc1 / 0x31637661)

Duration 3m35s

Maximum Size 1080px × 1080px 507.66 MB

Additional Information / Shotlist 00:00:00:00 - 00:00:05:23
As soon as I arrived to the Algerian – Tunisian borders

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I was kidnapped.

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I was kidnapped for 12 days.

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I arrived to Tunisia on 11th of October 2022.

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I stayed 12 days between their hands in an old construction site.

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I was tortured with a baseball bat and I was tied up

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Both my hands and my feet were tied up with a long rope

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I was tortured for 12 days with a baseball bat.

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They hit me on the head and I have this scars today,

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we can see here and there, and they hit me on the head with a bottle.

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At the same time, they were taking videos to send them to my family.

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To ask for money to pay the ransom for my freedom.

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The National Guard arrested me on 22 of October 2022, in the neighbourhood of Kasserine.

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They brought me back to the Libyan border of which I forgot the name until now

00:01:08:08 - 00:01:20:20
They brought to the Libyan border, it took two days, so we arrived on the 27th. We were 29 people

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When we arrived at the Libyan border, we found more black people from all nationalities,

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Gambians, Nigerians, Nigeriens…

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Congolese, all mixed up

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So, he (the president) did his speech, I went to work in the morning like everyday

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There were no blacks outside, but I didn’t pay attention. I waited for the bus.

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People look at me funnily

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There were some young people at the bus who were looking at me and talking.

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But I didn’t understand, I took out my phone and someone slap it to the ground.

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They beat me up.

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One person had a screwdriver, he stabbed me here.

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They pulled me out of the bus and hit me with stones

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and sticks.

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The police do not intervene.

00:02:13:10 - 00:02:20:18
In the area where we lived, there were seven houses of black people. We were around 30 people living there.

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The police parked their 6 vans,

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and young people of the neighbourhood came with Molotov cocktails.

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They set it aflame and threw them through the windows into the houses.

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When it catches on fire, you must get out.

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When you’re out, they stab you, they beat you with bottles,

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If the police caught people, they would put them in vans and bring them to Libya.

00:02:49:03 - 00:02:51:23
Until now we don’t know where they are.

00:02:51:23 - 00:02:57:05
My head hurts so much, I have so much pain, that sometimes I have migraines.

00:02:58:08 - 00:03:01:14
I don’t have the money to go to hospital in Tunisia and take a scan

00:03:01:14 - 00:03:05:11
And even if I had it, I would not go because they wouldn’t accept me.

00:03:05:18 - 00:03:11:10
Tunisia is not a safe country, for the black people

00:03:11:19 - 00:03:18:17
I don’t advice it to my African brothers with black skin

00:03:18:21 - 00:03:29:02
I call on the European Union, never to deport the migrants

00:03:30:00 - 00:03:33:00
Especially the black migrants, over there.

00:03:33:04 - 00:03:35:07
It’s like sending them back to the mobbing.

Testimonies from Tunisia - Uncut Testimony [INT]

Testimonies from Tunisia - Uncut Testimony [INT]