Senegal on Thursday repatriated 76 compatriots from Tunisia and neighboring Libya, the federal government introduced on Friday.

It’s the newest sub-Saharan nation to repatriate nationals after Tunisian President Kais Saied mentioned on February 21 that the presence of Tunisian nationals within the nation was a risk to the nation’s safety. 

He mentioned the presence of “hordes” of unlawful immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa was a supply of “violence and crime” and a “legal enterprise” geared toward “altering the demographic composition” of the nation.

These phrases have been adopted by a number of assaults on immigrants, and a whole bunch of them requested to return to their embassies.

The Senegalese authorities opened a disaster unit and a registry to determine would-be returnees.

Out of 172 individuals registered and established in Tunisia and Libya, 76 have been repatriated on Thursday by a flight of the nationwide airline Air Senegal, the Ministry of International Affairs mentioned in a press release printed Friday on social networks.

The ministry didn’t specify the variety of individuals repatriated from every of the 2 international locations. It additionally didn’t clarify why nationals have been introduced again from Libya.

Libya has been mired in a significant political disaster for the reason that 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi after 42 years of dictatorship.

Not like neighbors similar to Guinea and Mali, Senegal has been discreet concerning the repatriation.

Senegalese authorities banned a protest demonstration in entrance of the Tunisian embassy in Dakar on March 4 towards the Tunisian president’s remarks.

Senegalese President Macky Sall reported on March 10 on Twitter that he met with the Tunisian president the identical day. “We mentioned problems with widespread curiosity. I appreciated the appeasement measures he took within the context of the present state of affairs,” he mentioned.