French rapper Maître Gims has announced the cancellation of an upcoming concert in Djerba, Tunisia, to protest against the treatment of black African migrants stranded near the border areas with Algeria and Libya.
"Children, women, men, expelled from Tunisia to Libya, live in inhuman conditions," the rapper wrote on his Instagram account on Sunday.
"I cannot maintain my visit to Tunisia, scheduled for August 11," he added. "I don't know what the solutions are. But this extreme distress is unbearable."
Tunisia has become a major gateway for irregular migrants and asylum-seekers attempting the perilous sea voyages in often rickety boats in the hopes of a better life in Europe.
The distance between Tunisia's port city of Sfax and Italy's Lampedusa island is only about 130 kilometres.
In early July, racial tensions flared following the death of a Tunisian man in a clash between locals and migrants in Sfax.
As a result, hundreds of migrants from sub-Saharan African countries were evicted.
The NGO Human Rights Watch said up to 1,200 Africans were "expelled or forcibly transferred" to remote desert areas.
Stuck in the desert
Libyan border guards told French news agency AFP that, over the past two weeks, they have rescued hundreds of migrants who said they were left by Tunisian authorities in the border region near Al-Assah, about 150 kilometres west of Tripoli.
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Last Thursday, a joint statement from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) referred to the "unfolding tragedy" of migrants, refugees and asylum seekers in Tunisia's border regions.
"They are stuck in the desert, facing extreme heat, and without access to shelter, food or water. There is an urgent need to provide critical, life-saving humanitarian assistance while urgent, humane solutions are found," they said.
They noted that there are also women, including some pregnant ones, and children among those displaced.
Earlier this year, West African nations including Burkina Faso, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali and Senegal repatriated hundreds of citizens from Tunisia amid a wave of racist attacks there.
It followed a tirade by the Tunisian president Kaïs Saïed in February blaming "hordes of illegal migrants from sub-Saharan Africa" for crime and alleging a "criminal plot" to change the country's demographic make-up.
The European Union has recently been in talks with his government, offering Tunisia a major funding package to help it revive its flagging and debt-hit economy, and better secure its borders.
