TUNIS (Reuters) – Tunisia will accept all Tunisian migrants deported from France following the fatal stabbings at a church in Nice as long as all judicial appeals have been exhausted, its interior minister said on Friday.
The French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is visiting Tunisia and Algeria to discuss security matters including the deportation of dozens of migrants following the attack.
An assailant shouting “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest) beheaded a woman and killed two other people in a church in Nice last month in France’s second deadly knife attack in two weeks with a suspected Islamist motive.
The suspected attacker, a 21-year-old from Tunisia who had arrived in Europe on Sept. 20 in Lampedusa, the Italian island off Tunisia that is a main landing point for migrants from Africa.
“We are ready to accept every Tunisian, but with conditions preserving the dignity and giving him rights to access to all stages of judicial appeals in France before the deportation,” Interior Minister Taoufik Charfeddine said.
Tunisia, which faces a challenging economic situation and political instability since the 2011 revolution, saw a large increase in the flow of migrant boats towards Italy in the past three years.
(Reporting by Tarek Amara, editing by Louise Heavens)
