On 2 April 2025, the Libyan government issued a statement through the spokesperson for the Internal Security Authority, punishing civil society organizations for allegedly participating in “a project to settle migrants of African origin in Libya,” in a “hostile action aimed at changing the demographic composition of the country and which threatens Libyan society.” These remarks echo the Tunisian President’s speech on 21 February 2023, during a meeting of his National Security Council, in which he declared that “hordes of illegal migrants” from sub-Saharan Africa wanted to “change the demographic composition of Tunisia.”
On the one hand, these statements come against a backdrop of rising racism and xenophobia in North Africa, with the complicity of the European Union, which is externalizing its migration control policy. The EU and North African countries are multiplying the number of agreements on migration to combat so-called “irregular” migration, such as that of 2 February 2017 between Italy and Libya, renewed in 2020 and again on 20 March 2023. Or the memorandum of understanding of 16 July 2023 between the EU and Tunisia and that of 17 March 2024 between the EU and Egypt. Ultimately, these agreements put a blind spot on the suffering of many migrants – women, men and children – who are victims of racist attacks on a daily basis, arrests, torture and deportations to the borders. On the other hand, North Africa is a fairly vast geographical area, with different socio-economic realities depending on historical and national trajectories. Despite the ethnic mosaic, however, racism is a structuring and structural social and political phenomenon that has spanned the entire modern history of this region. In this study we will focus on the racism of the last ten years against black migrants in particular. This also excludes from our analytical framework the issue of the marginalization of indigenous black populations (Amazigh, Nubian, Bedouin, etc.) as well as discrimination against other racialized migrant groups. To gain a better understanding of this phenomenon and its underlying trends, we will focus in particular on the cases of Morocco and Tunisia, with a few similar cases in Algeria and Libya.
Between Repression and Denial of Racism: Migration Control Strategies in Morocco
The Moroccan government adopted a National Immigration and Asylum Strategy in 2014, which promised progress in terms of integration and socio-economic rights for migrants. The status of more than 50,000 people has been regularized. However, the results of this policy are mixed when set against the devastating effects of the systemic racism suffered by black migrants in Morocco for over two decades. The stereotypes pervading racist discourse perpetuate hierarchical categories that have their origins in the history of the trans-Saharan slave trade.[1] The categories disseminated by colonial administrations reified social positions on pseudo-scientific grounds. The 21st century is witnessing the dilution of this painful past, without completely removing its footprint. Multidisciplinary research on this subject has developed further since the revolutionary context of 2011, highlighting the “colour line” that can separate migrants from local populations.
The stereotypes pervading racist
discourse perpetuate hierarchical
categories that have their origins
in the history of the trans-Saharan
slave trade
Black people, even if they are Muslims, bear the stigma of their phenotypic traits. Some Moroccans perceive black people, particularly those who wish to migrate to Europe, as carrying the seeds of delinquency and criminality: prostitution and drug use and/or sales are attributed to these migrants, who are essentialized and despised. In the face of what is sometimes presented by the State and the media as a threat to the economic security and physical integrity of citizens, violence is justified. In addition to verbal injunctions, racism manifests itself through physical attacks, particularly by the police. The brutality of law enforcement is particularly visible when migrants attempt to gain access to the Spanish enclaves. In June 2022, more than 2,000 migrants tried to cross the barrier separating them from Melilla. Joint action by the Spanish and Moroccan authorities claimed the lives of more than 23 people and left at least 77 missing. The costs incurred by black migrants are not the exclusive responsibility of the police. In other regions of the country, such as Souss-Massa, where migrants are overexploited in the agricultural sector, inter-community clashes are recurrent. Furthermore, migrant women are particularly targeted by sexual and sexist violence because of their position at the intersection[2] of race and gender, which exposes them to misogynoir. Negrophobia serves as a powerful tool of Moroccan capitalism: racism does not exist independently of this economic and political system, where migrants are seen as adjustment variables for the national and local elites. In times of economic growth and the need for labour, migrants are offered insecure and low-paid jobs. In times of crisis, these same migrant workers may be criminalized, asked to leave the country or deported. On the other hand, other black migrant populations are welcomed with honours by the regime. These include diplomats, entrepreneurs and investors.
Ultimately, excessive discrimination against sub-Saharan migrants would have resulted in more intense revolts. All the more so as Morocco is not only a country of transit towards an increasingly fortified Europe, but also a country of destination, work, study and residence. In short, according to the most recent review of Morocco by the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, dated 23 November 2023, “the Committee’s expert members welcomed the efforts made in Morocco to put an end to hate speech in all its forms, as well as, more generally, a positive dynamic with regard to several issues relating to the application of the Convention”. Nevertheless, the report added that “the definition of racial discrimination in Moroccan law did not fully comply with the provisions of Article 1 of the Convention, in particular because of the absence of mention of all the prohibited grounds of discrimination and indirect forms of racial discrimination. Furthermore, Morocco has not adopted a plan of action to combat racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, as provided for in the Durban Declaration and Programme of Action”.Similar dynamics can be observed in Algeria, with protean anti-black racism. The rights of migrants to access dignified work are undermined by employer abuses. Moreover, far from protecting their inalienable rights to health, education and housing, the Algerian authorities repeatedly expel these people, regardless of their nationality, into the desert. They are left to their fate in what is known as Point Zero, near the border with Niger.
Continuum of Violence against Black People: The Tunisian Case
Despite having enacted a law against racism adopted in 2018, Tunisia is experiencing an unprecedented wave of violence and racism against black people. President Kais Saied’s speech of February 21, 2023 consecrated the impunity of this racism. The day after this speech of this speech, thousands of black people were deported to the Libyan and Algerian border and abandoned to their fate. Waves of verbal and physical attacks have erupted in several regions of the country, forcing migrants and refugees to settle on the outskirts of cities, where the police often carry out raids to disperse their camps, make arrests and expel people to the borders. These actions are accompanied by the criminalization of civil society actors who provide assistance to irregular migrants.
In its 2024 report, the World Organisation Against Torture drew up a chronology of the violence against migrants in Tunisia: this situation of total impunity has led to very serious acts, such as the sale of black people by the Tunisian authorities to Libyan militias. These are forms of modern slavery denounced by activists and civil society organizations. In Libya, despite the human rights violations suffered by black migrants, including torture, detention, and economic exploitation, the EU continues to support the Tripoli authorities.
Security-Based Migration Policy: a Rock and a Hard Place of Structural Racism
Systemic racism cannot be reduced to “hatred” or “fear” of others. Its emotional dimension is only one of the consequences of its fundamental material logic: that of justifying exploitation and oppression. The denial of the human rights of migrants, particularly the right to freedom of movement, is enabled by a racist consciousness that dehumanizes and inferiorizes individuals on the basis of physical characteristics or cultural differences.[3]
The denial of the human rights of migrants
is enabled by a racist consciousness that
dehumanizes and inferiorizes individuals
on the basis of physical characteristics
or cultural differences
The racist dynamics linked to the history of slavery and colonialism in North Africa remain understudied in North African academic fields, despite some progress. Confined to social denial and a lack of public recognition despite its growth, structural racism regenerates and cyclically resurfaces crisis after crisis.
Finally, we observe the development of a neocolonial pact that consists of financially, logistically, and technically supporting North African governments in a form of sub-contracting migratory repression. Caught between the hammer and the anvil of security-driven migration policies, many African migrants lack access to safe and regular migration routes that would allow them to settle and live in Europe. Through a domino effect, North African police officers act on behalf of a Fortress Europe, thus participating in full connivance in the necropolitics decreed by European neocolonialism.
[1] Djamil Niane, Seydi. “Le Maroc Noir une Histoire de L’esclavage, De la Race et de L’islam.” Afrique(s) en mouvement, 3(2), 78-80, 2020.
[2] Mseffer, Dounia. “Les Petits Combattants.” Migrations au Maroc : l’impasse ? Casablanca, 2019.
[3] Fanon, Frantz. Racisme et Culture. Présence Africaine, 77-84. 2002.
Header photo: Manifestation de collectifs de sans-papiers de Paris. William Hamon. CC BY-NC-ND 2.0