Nawaat | 01.11.2017
Two weeks ago, minister of the Interior Lotfi Brahem received Italian ambassador to Tunisia Raimondo De Cardona to strengthen cooperation on fighting crime and tackling illegal immigration. On the same day, October 18, 25 years old, Ahmed, from Redeyef reached Lampedusa illegally, on a boat carrying Tunisian youth mainly from the same small mining town in the mid-western governorate of Gafsa.
« We have been struggling throughout our lives in Tunisia. The authorities there neither gave us jobs nor respect; we only get humiliation », Ahmed confided on the condition that we would not give his real name. Ahmed is now in Lampedusa. He and many others have been on a hunger strike since Saturday. « We started the hunger strike on Saturday…my friend started on Friday… we have been on water and sugar…if there is no solution we will not take water and sugar…and we will sleep outside the center » .