Tunisia arrests 3 over deadly stabbing attack on migrants

TUNIS — Three Tunisians including a teenager have been arrested on suspicion of stabbing to death a migrant from sub-Saharan Africa and wounding five others, a court spokesman said on Monday.

A 30-year-old man from Benin died after seven Tunisians set upon a group of 19 migrants in a house in El Haffara, a working-class area of Sfax, Tunisia’s second city, local court spokesman Faouzi Masmoudi said.

Five others were hospitalised in the May 22 attack but “not seriously wounded”, he said, adding that the motivation behind the violence was being investigated.

Tunisia has seen a rise in racially motivated attacks on migrants and foreign students following comments by President Kais Saied in February in which he blamed Sub-Saharan Africans for a “wave of violence and crime” in the country.

The North African country of 12 million people hosts an estimated 21,000 migrants from other parts of Africa, representing 0.2 per cent of the population.

Videos of the Sfax attack show seven men involved in the assault on the migrants, Masmoudi said, adding that the three suspects arrested as part of a judicial investigation were aged 17, 23 and 36.