From the informal migrant camps set up around the commune of El Amra, north of the port city of Sfax (central-eastern Tunisia), only piles of smoldering debris, scraps of plastic tarps and personal belongings scattered across the olive fields remain.

Since April 3, security forces have been conducting a large-scale operation to dislodge the exiles, mostly from Sub-Saharan Africa but also from countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan, who had settled there over the past two years. According to estimates by the authorities, 20,000 people lived there undocumented, including 4,000 in a camp known as "kilometer 24".

Working with construction equipment and trucks, the national guard agents dismantled one by one tents that precariously sheltered thousands of people, small businesses –grocery stores, cafés, and other restaurants – as well as the makeshift hospital that the migrants had put together, as observed by Le Monde two weeks earlier.

The law enforcement "took everything down, then burned it all, even the food supplies we had," said a Cameroonian migrant, reached by phone, who requested anonymity. "They took away the rest before starting to clean up. The goal is clearly to discourage people and prevent us from creating any stability that would allow us to prepare for a crossing."

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