On the Ground in Tunis- from Refugees International

Day One: Tunis
By Dara McLeod

We arrived in Tunisia yesterday evening – the place where it all started. It’s hard to imagine that the popular revolutions sweeping across the Arab world began with one Tunisian man and his modest fruit stand.

But driving in from the airport, you see signs that this country’s revolution is still fresh – military tanks and soldiers on the streets, barbed wire surrounding the central police station across from our hotel.

And it is the very newness of this country’s government that makes its response to the people fleeing across its eastern border with Libya remarkable. Today was our first and only full day in Tunis, and it was spent in meetings trying to better understand how Tunisia is coping with the recent influx of the tens of thousands of people fleeing the violence in Libya. And by all accounts, Tunisia’s transitional government has handled its first crisis professionally, and with a great deal of solidarity amongst the Tunisian people. The country’s military is keeping a solid control over the situation at the border. And we’re told stories of local communities in the area providing shelter and food – some 2000 – 3000 meals per day.

But in our meeting today with Radhouane Nouicer, Tunisia’s new Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs, we are reminded that this is a difficult period for the fragile infrastructure in Tunisia. And this government in transition won’t be able to handle the burden of a large, unemployed population for too long. The international community must continue to pay attention to the problem of those leaving Libya. It is not going away. And if conditions within Libya continue to deteriorate, the world must be prepared for an influx of people seeking protection. Because it is too much to ask that this new government bears the burden alone.

Continue reading on RI's blog all this week for daily updates from Dara.