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Africa North
Hundreds of refugees refuse to leave Tunisia camp
2013-07-01
[Al Ahram] Several hundred people who had fled the 2011 Libya conflict refused Sunday to leave the Choucha refugee camp in southern Tunisia, which was due to be shut, blocking attempts to dismantle their tents, an AFP journalist reported.
It's worked for the Paleostinians...
But this lot, unfortunately for their near-term prospects, are not Palestinians. Later they will have reason to be grateful for this little fact.
The UN's refugee agency UNHCR
...who are grateful for the work...
said in March that it would close the camp on Sunday. Choucha opened in early 2011 to shelter those fleeing the conflict that toppled Libya's former dictator Muammar Qadaffy
...who single-handedly turned a moderately prosperous kingdom into a dictator's fantasyland and was then murdered by his indignant subjects 42 years later...

Water and electricity supplies to the camp have been cut, but its remaining residents, mostly sub-Saharan Africans, are blocking any attempts to take their tents down, the AFP journalist reported.

Mohammed Taher, a 33-year-old Sudanese resident of the camp, said he was determined to stay in Choucha in spite of its closure.

"We refuse to leave, and even if the Tunisian authorities are going to take down our tents, we will sleep under the stars," he said.

He said the Tunisian government had made lots of promises to the refugees at Choucha which it had not kept.

Khaled Moujib, a Paleostinian living in Choucha, also charged that the government was doing little to help their situation.

"We are being held hostage by the Tunisian authorities, who refuse to legalise our situation," he said. "We do not want to be integrated into a Tunisia that does not have a law to protect refugees."

Paul Constant, 39, from Ivory Coast said he would leave the camp immediately if he was offered residency in Tunisia.
Posted by:Fred

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