On Sunday, two groups -- 33 Ivorians and 20 Sudanese -- arriving from Libya by land were arrested by military units in the southern border area of Medenine and sent back to Libyan territory, the defense ministry said.
The units asked the groups to enter via official border crossings, the ministry said in a statement.
But on a video shared on Sunday on social media, the apparent
"We don't know what to do... we need help," one of them said, describing his group as Ivorian.
AFP was not able to verify the video, which was reposted by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights.
In a joint statement, that NGO and other rights groups decried a "violation of
The statement said 36 -- rather than 33 -- Ivorians had been intercepted, including 11 women and three babies, who were "abandoned in a tough climate."
The NGOs requested on Sunday that the Tunisian authorities allow the "
A July report by the Tunisian Forum for Economic and Social Rights said that the number of asylum-seekers arriving via land borders more than doubled in the first half of 2019.
A total of 1,008 people entered Tunisia illegally over six months, compared to 417 in the first half of 2018, it said.
Many were sub-Saharan Africans arriving through Libya.
"The aim of the majority of them is to leave (Tunisia) towards Europe
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...by sea, while some have left Libya fleeing the security situation," the report said.