![]() ![]() In addition, Ben Dhia said, many of those who remained in the camp rejected staying in Tunisia, instead expressing a desire to travel to Western countries. Plans were made to amend that law, he said, but that never happened owing to the political tumult in Tunisia. Moez Ben Dhia, a former adviser to Tunisia's minister of social affairs, tells Al Jazeera that many of the refugees did not meet the legal requirements - such as holding the necessary identification papers - for obtaining residency permits. "A few hundred wanted to stay here and applied for residency, but never received it," Tringham says. Parker worked for a year as a welder in Tunis, but recently decided to return to Choucha, because he never received more than half of his promised salary of $272 a month.Īfter the closure of Choucha, the Tunisian government announced that the people who remained in the camp could get residency permits. Parker, a 36-year-old refugee who declined to give his last name, and Mamadou Sylla, 28 - both from the Ivory Coast - sit in front of one of the most well-built tents, which they jokingly call the "White House". "I think the vast majority of the Chouchans have been suffering from PTSD, which has manifested in their physical wellbeing," Tringham tells Al Jazeera. Oliver Tringham, a British refugee advocate affiliated with AMERA International who has been helping refugees in the camp since it opened, says it is clear that they need help. "Many men in Choucha are traumatised and depressed," Marzoug says. He acknowledges that the refugees' mental health is declining. It is inhumane here," he tells Al Jazeera.Ĭhamseddine Marzoug, a fisherman and volunteer for the Red Crescent from the nearby city of Zarzis, goes to the camp each month on his own initiative to bring medicines and to drive sick people to the hospital. "Snakes and cockroaches swarm under our beds. He says he has tried to commit suicide twice. He says he was tortured in Libya before coming here, accused of "bringing the revolution from Egypt". ![]() The oldest and only Egyptian man in the camp, 68-year-old Ali Ali, sits a little further away in a small garden around the tent, made from a few desert plants, stones and plastic bottles. The Chadians with whom he shares his tent have gone to the nearest city of Ben Gardane, 20km away, to obtain casual labour whenever they can, constructing houses or loading lorries. ![]() Anyway, these days there is little work." Since I fell ill, I've just begged for food from the Libyans passing by on the road. "They say I walked away into the desert and burned myself, but I can't remember. "During Ramadan, I lost my mind," Ali says, with a bag containing medicines to treat depression, anxiety and schizophrenia laid out in front of him. READ MORE: Refugees left behind in Tunisia's desertĪround 700 people - whose refugee claims were denied but who believed their lives would be in danger if they returned home - remained in the camp, a number that his since dwindled to about 60. He lived in Libya for years, earning money by cleaning government buildings, but was forced to flee again as violence broke out during Libya's 2011 uprising - and from there, he crossed the border into Choucha camp.īut in June 2013, after relocating several thousand refugees from Choucha to western countries, UNHCR determined that its mission was complete and closed the camp, removing the toilets, showers, electricity and running water. Ali has been on the run for years: He fled his village in Chad's border region near Darfur, Sudan, in 2005 after it came under attack from armed gangs. These men have been living in Choucha camp, in a windswept piece of desert in southern Tunisia, since its foundation by the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) in early 2011.
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