Solidarity with Fighting Refugees in Choucha / Tunisia

Now it is already a week, since a group of recognized refugees from Choucha Camp started a hunger strike in front of the UNHCR offices in Tunis. People are now getting very weak, today there has been two women hospitalized. In total there have been ten persons now that needed medical attention. Until now the UNHCR has not offered any meeting since the hunger strike started, but they have demanded specific information about the number of protesters. The refugees are still waiting for their demand – resettlement to a country with functioning asylum protection – to be met.

The protesters were today joined by a delegation of palestinian refugees from Choucha. The 22 Palestinians in Choucha Camp also find themselves without being allowed to the Resettlement Programme. Five of them will join the hunger strike from today on, including one underaged boy.

On the Article and Reports page of this blog (find it in the menu on top of the page) you can now find an updated multilingual Link-collection of media coverage on the recent struggles concerning Choucha Camp.

As you can read on the VOICE OF CHOUCHA blog, even the water and electricity supply in Choucha camped stopped, after rejected Refugees, whose Asylum-claims were  not given a proper considerarion, have been living without any food and medical support since November 2012.

For the past four days in the camp,there is no electricity and water,reasons UN-explainable. According to the ISLAMIC RELIEF and the camp security department, they said the UNHCR stopped paying for the bills. Mindful of the fact that the camp is in a remote desert region that has access to nothing. We are human and need to be treated with fair justice and equality. Is the closing of the camp sough-ting out solutions for the inhabitants or bringing THE PAINS,MORE THAN BEFORE?

The protesting Refugees from Choucha received a solidarity note from Berlin today!

We, the protesting refugees in Berlin Germany demand  the immediate meeting of the demands of the hungerstriking refugees from Choucha in front of the UNHCR building in Tunis!

We claim you [UNHCR] being responsible for everything that happens to the refugees!

* Reopening of all rejected cases by an indipendent body

* Same rights for everybody in Choucha, concerning food and medical assistance

* Resettlement to a safe country, where refugees’ rights are being respected   signed the protesting refugees in Berlin Germany

signed: the protesting refugees in Berlin/Germany

[francais au dessous]

Forty-one sub-Saharan refugees from the Shousha camp knocked on the doors of the influential World Social Forum demanding human dignity. The lack of recognition and concrete solutions encouraged them to collectively start a hunger strike  in front of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in Tunis on March 29th 2013, putting their health – already very fragile – in grave danger.

The twelfth World Social Forum has just ended its Tunisian edition which was held from March 26th to March 30th 2013 with the blessing of the Tunisian authorities and numerous international NGOs. “Dignity” was the slogan of this gathering of NGOs, trade unions, along with Tunisian and international civil society. I would now like to draw your attention to the following urgent situation.

Dignity is also the claim of forty-one sub-Saharan refugees from the Shousha camp. Despite the great risk of being arrested and assaulted by the National Guard, which unfortunately has already occured on  March 3rd 2013 at Aram near Gabés, this large refugee camp remains located in Southern Tunisia, just 9 kilometers away from the Libyan border.

The courageous act to collectively go on a hunger strike in front of the High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Tunis was put forward on March 29th 2013. While the closing of this provisional Shousha camp is scheduled for June 2013, this group of refugees assert their human dignity and therefore refuse the unjust integration program that Tunisia has imposed on them. Unfortunately It does not take into account the significant exposure to discrimination and racist violence which remains to be a constant reality in the Shousha camp. These discriminations also  extend past the camps borders and into the public spaces; we find these violations present in hospitals, markets and within the public transport system. Following these countless human rights injustices two refugees were subsequently killed and seven others were injured in May 2011.

“I would rather die now than live without dignity,” wrote the group in a public statement. After living in situations of extreme violence, submission and instability on Tunisian soil following their hasty evacuation from Libya, these men, women and children called out  to Humanitarian organizations to defend their human rights and dignity so as  to  not become a “second-class human” consequently left behind waiting for a possible future law on refugees in Tunisia.

“Two years of suffering” in conditions of misery and torment in extreme weather conditions and they have just a single demand: that of seeing their files sent to resettlement countries and benefiting from an effective protection system – similar to other refugees in order to finally be treated “as human beings.”

We would be grateful to see this information in your columns, we remain at your disposal for any further information,

Latest News:

Three refugees were taken to the hospital on Wednesday April 3rd, 2013. They are now added to one other person already hospitalized since Sunday March 31st 2013. Tunisian Civil Protection refused to come and rescue these three individuals who finally had to be brought to the hospital by means of a taxi.

Refugees in Choucha Hunger Strike: 00216 27 41 558 ,  choucha[at]riseup.net

https://www.facebook.com/refugees.shousha?fref=ts

http://chouchaprotest.noblogs.org

Continue reading →

The situation in front of the UNHCR office in Tunis is getting worse. Yesterday the refugees and some few supporters tried to talk with people of the UNHCR staff, but when they were talking with one man, Ursula Schulze Aboubacar, the person repsonsible for UNHCR Tunisia, came by car and ordered that nobody should talk with the refugees or other people in front of the building.

During the last days, already some people collapsed and the ambulance came to bring them to a hospital. Today also two people collapsed, but no ambulance came, and it was told that that ambulances will no longer take refugees on hungerstrike to a hospital. So the two people were brought by taxi to a hospital.

It is very urgent to get more support for the Choucha refugees in order to brake the UNHCRs ignorance towards the collapsing people in front of their office!

It is time for the UNHCR to acknowledge the Refugees demands!

Write Emails in support of the Refugees demands to the UNHCR:

Since four days a group of 41 refugees from Choucha camp are staying in front of the UNHCR office in Tunis without eating. The UNHCR considers the protesters as refugees, but refuses them to leave Tunisia via the Resettlement program.
The protesters are sleeping rough outdoors without any shelter, refuse to eat anything and only drink water until their demand – Resettlement to a third country with working protection systems  for all of them – is met. One of the protesters even refused to drink water and had to go to hospital yesterday. Others were catching a flue, due to cold temperatures in the night and occasional rain.
Today a delegation of the protesters made a trip to the Tunisian Constitutional Assembly in Bardu area of Tunis, to take their protest also to the ears of Tunisian authorities, who are  together with the UNHCR responsible for the “local integration” program, which the protesters refuse due to a lack of refugee-protection laws as well as massive racist-experiences in Tunisia.
More information about the protest of accepted refugees, struggling for Resettlement, you can find in their protest statement.

The UNHCR must react as soon as possible on this hungerstrike! The protesters had traumatic experiences in Tunisia and cannot stay – therefore they are determined to continue until their demand is met!

Since friday Refugees from Choucha are on hungerstrike in front of the UNHCR office in Tunis. All 41 participants are accepted by UNHCR as refugees but did not receive Ressetlement. Instead UNHCR supported by various European governments started a local integration programm for those refugees.

Since this group experienced a lot of racism in Tunisia and fears for their security they started to protest, as you could read on this blogpost in their protest statement.

So during the WSF they widened their protest by entering into hungerstrike, with the basic demand of an enlargement of the Resettlement Programm – so that all refugees who fled the Libyan crisis would receive asylum in a country with a working protection system.

More information about this action and further steps will follow soon!

Friday saw a lof of movement concerning the struggle of people from Choucha Refugee Camp.

Press conference and continued protest

At two pm a press conference was held within the scope of the World Social Forum on which all four different groups of protesting Refugees participated and explained their demands to the audience.

Press Conference at the World Social Forum

Earlier that day the Tunisian Newspaper “le Temps” suprised by featuring a reportage on the struggle of Refugees from Choucha on page 1 and 3.

The Refugees whose cases have been rejected by UNHCR due to hasty procedures continued their protest at the entrance to the WSF. Spreading Leaflets explaining their struggle and showing banners with slogans like: “UNHCR finish your job”. A group of protesters also entered the WSF area and formed a small demonstration to spread their demands, which still are:

* Reopening of all rejected cases by an indipendent body

* Same rights for everybody in Choucha, concerning food and medical assistance

* Resettlement to a safe country, where refugees’ rights are being respected                    

Protest at UNHCR offices

Also the Refugees whose cases have been accepted, but who did not receive any Resettlement, continued their protest in front of the UNHCR headquarters in Tunis’ Lac-districts. They are still focussing on racism in the tunisian society, which makes local integration a very difficult task and which leads the protesters to the demand of Resettlement to a safe country.

Assembly of Migration

Two speakers of the Protesters from Choucha spoke on the Asssembly of Migration, where Choucha was one of the main topics. Other speakers referred to it and called on Europeans to put pressure on their governments to accept refugees from Choucha and to the Maghreb people to overcome racism against Subsaharan Africans.

This was a succesful last day of WSF for the Choucha protest. But still this struggle is not won. The protesters need as much support as possible to subjugate such a powerfull adversary as the “humanitarian” UNHCR is.

Thursday saw a protest of about 50 rejected Refugees at the entry to the World Social Forum. The refugees stayed during several hours taking the opportunities to spread their message to journalists and interested participants from all over the world. They were holding banners saying for example: “We are not migrants under Tunisia, we are asylum seekers. We demand the UNHCR asylum protection!” and “Resettlement in safe countries counting with effective system of protection!”.